


Anka

by starstuddedsin



Series: Monrovia [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Bathed in cum, Blow Jobs, Boot Worship, Boypussy, Childbirth, Cock Cages, Cock Warming, Cunnilingus, Dehumanization, Dubious Consent, Genital Piercing, Glory Hole, Humiliation, Lactation, Large Cock, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Object Insertion, Oral Sex, Oviposition, Painful Sex, Pillory, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Prostitution, Puppy Play, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Size Difference, Spanking, Vaginal Sex, Watersports, Whipping, piss drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:35:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 58,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24203734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstuddedsin/pseuds/starstuddedsin
Summary: Robert Westruther, the eleventh Earl of Summerstoke, finds an abused pregnant whore in the constabulary gaol. It’s a genuine dryad, with a little dryad cock and a tight dryad cunt. Summerstoke rescues it. Summerstoke takes it home. Summerstoke names it.After that there is really only one thing to do with it. Little dryad whores, you see, are meant to be fucked.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Monrovia [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783531
Comments: 73
Kudos: 497





	1. Summerstoke

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place right after [“The Switch,”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24092500/chapters/58009204) but you don’t have to read that to get this.

Robert Westruther, the eleventh Earl of Summerstoke, had a secret or two.

For one thing, he was not the son of the tenth Earl. No one had ever been born of the tenth Earl. The mad old fool had been as impotent as he was randy, and it was all thanks to a succession of clever wives and mistresses that he had never figured out the former fact.

Hard to notice that the children weren't yours when the children resided in one of several country properties miles away, anyway. And you resided in the capitol, with a swarm of lovelies and fuckpets to attend to your every need. But then that had been the gay twenties in Monrovia. The tenth Earl had been nothing but a product of his times, even dying quite typically for the twenties. An opium overdose had taken him while he'd been buried in the cunt of a pretty half-Eelie whore. The whore had been shocked and upset. It had taken a dedicated surgeon several hours to surgically remove her frozen tentacles from the Earl's lifeless body.

Then young Robert had been sent for. He came to the capitol attended only by an old country servant, the wild Wrollf Urk, and Urk's half-human son, Jem. Though these creatures were as huge and imposing as any Wrollf of the Norderland, with their frightening tusks, furry chests, and slitted golden eyes, they set off the eleventh Earl to rather nice effect. He was a strapping, powerful lad himself. He resembled the tenth Earl not at all. Rather, he had the cinnamon hair his late mother had had, as well as her green eyes. But hers had been blue-green. His were a sort of yellow-green.

And then there was the fact that, whenever the mood took him, he sprouted hair all over his chest and his cock grew about three sizes.

-

"As your sister," said Geraldine, who was only his half-sister, and not in the way people thought, "I implore you to see that you cannot keep this creature, Summerstoke."

"I _implore_ you too," growled Jem. "Been implorin'. Implored 'til I was blue in the bloody face, didn't I?"

Jem did not say _as your brother_. He never said it, though it was true. They shared the same cinnamon-haired mother, and the same Wrollf father, but where Summerstoke had been born mostly-human, Jem had been the dark secret the first Countess had had to relegate to the servants' quarters alongside her lover. 

This was a bitter truth Summerstoke didn't like to think about too much. He preferred to focus on the happy country childhood they'd both had, him and Jem. Even after their mother had died, the Earl had at least remarried Geraldine's pretty mother. And she, too, had become lonely and tired of her husband's whoring, and had reached for Urk. And then nine months later Geraldine had been born, perfect and human and raven-haired, and occasionally, when she was stressed, possessed of very literal claws. 

These claws had landed them in something of a muddle.

It was the twenty-first year of the reign of King Bardolph the Vast, most exalted monarch of Monrovia, and thus high time for the king to be getting married. This left every noble-borne woman in the capitol unsheathing her own claws. If Summerstoke was being honest, he considered those metaphorical claws quite a bit worse than Geraldine's literal ones. Lady Merrivale had thrown her hat in the ring, and she was a virago if there ever was one. So too had the Viscountess North, a terrifying redhead who was known to publicly flog commoners that irritated her.

But the worst of them all, and hence the one widely held to be first in the running, was Lady Hermia Lanyon, the newly-widowed Countess of Salford.

Most of the King's council favored her. Her younger brother, the Duke of Allerton, had seen to that, quietly dismissing or sneakily finding ways to disgrace any who opposed his family securing for their jewel a royal wedding. But, just as it seemed the Countess had conquered all opposition, an unexpected hurdle arose.

"Don't much like those icy blondes like Hermia, what," the King was heard to say. "Truth be told, a darkie like that Geraldine Westruther's more my style."

This attention was not what Geraldine wanted. This attention was not what _any_ of them wanted. Summerstoke was an ancient and revered seat that had fallen quite by accident into the lap of three countrified bastard mongrels. Lest anyone notice that it had done so, the eleventh Earl, his sister, and Jem had done their utmost to be quiet and respectable. Summerstoke himself didn't take part in politics, didn't game, and only whored within discreet limits. Jem played the part of silent, invisible valet. And Geraldine mostly stayed in the country. 

Summerstoke couldn't even think of when the King had had the _time_ to meet Geraldine, as Geraldine was hardly ever even in the capitol. Still, after that Geraldine had a target on her back. And after that the whispers had started. 

Geraldine's mother had not been a cinnamon-haired country lady, but a princess of Irvidistan, brown-skinned and beautiful. While society would never presume to think that Summerstoke's fair, local mother might have fucked the Wrollf servant, somehow the Countess of Salford had surmised that Geraldine's mother might have. 

Probably it was the fact that, if you examined Geraldine closely, she looked a bit like Jem. And the fact that, when cornered by the Countess at Wyland's Gardens and ruthlessly interrogated about the cut of her bonnet, perhaps the _tiniest_ hint of claws had begun to cut through Geraldine's fine green gloves. Or perhaps it was the fact that, the Countess of Salford being the icy blonde bitch that she was, she'd had her brother raid the Summerstoke townhouse on a pretense, and so unearthed some _very_ suggestive letters from Princess Sera of Irvidistan to Urk the Wrollf (and thank god Summerstoke had had the presence of mind to burn his own mother's letters -- he had no idea what Urk was doing keeping the ones from Sera).

The Countess had written a calm, composed and very nasty blackmail note, which had the effect of summoning a devastated Geraldine to the Capitol to beg the aid of her brothers. She, Jem, and Summerstoke had quickly deduced that without Sera's letters, the proposed blackmail would have no power. So Summerstoke and Jem had promptly burgled the Countess' own townhouse, burning perhaps a bit more of it than they ought to have done in an effort to destroy all the proofs, which, thankfully, _were_ among the effects destroyed.

Summerstoke had reasoned that it should have been fine to do this. He wasn't doing it as the Earl. He had made himself hairy and slit-eyed and inhuman, not the Earl of Summerstoke at all. Looking like that, no one could say, "Dash it, the Earl of Summerstoke's gone and committed an arson." Instead they would say, "Dash it, a Wrollf no one knows has gone and done it. Wish we could find him. No idea where he is. It's like he disappeared into thin air."

Only -- he and Jem had been caught. Summerstoke had had to hastily send for Freddie Audley, his dearest friend and the only human in all of Monrovia to know his secrets, to bail them out and pay off the constabulary. And all of that would be getting back to Salford and Allerton, and even if that didn't scream "The Earl is a bloody inhuman wolf-man," it most definitely screamed, "The Earl knows you suspect his sister's inhuman, and instead of submitting her for interrogation about it he's taken the side of the suspect, which rather suggests he isn't big on maintaining the purity of Monrovia against the oncoming inhuman horde, what."

It was no longer the gay twenties. Public opinion now held that, rather than keeping a few foreign oddities about as fuckpets, right-thinking Earls and Dukes and the like ought to be working to expel the inhumans, and keep Monrovia for Monrovians. Summerstoke had always carefully avoided having any sort of opinion whatsoever on that, but right now perhaps he'd shown his hand a bit.

It was therefore entirely the wrong time to rescue a fucked-out, pregnant, entirely inhuman little elf from the constabulary gaol. Fucked-out because, truth be told, Summerstoke had spent most of their gaol stay fucking that elf.

Only in its arse. Summerstoke hadn't had time to play with its little cunt. But, oh, he'd wanted to. He had a weakness for dryadalis caeli, the common jungle dryad. Or Switches, as they were more commonly called here in the Capitol.

"You fucked him too," he told Jem now accusatorially.

"Because you suggested it! And you can't keep him!"

"Allerton probably already knows you had Freddie take him from the constabulary," Geraldine was saying, disgusted. "It's one thing to publicly claim you wanted to put a pair of Wrollves down yourself in retaliation for an attack on a noblewoman, but how do you propose to explain picking up a Switch whore?"

Summerstoke had no answer. He faced his siblings. Geraldine was regal in her green gown, picking at her needlepoint like she found Summerstoke to be utterly stupid, which she no doubt did. Jem was tall and surly and defiant, as he always was, a glowering black-clad hulk that clashed with the silky golden curtains. 

Summerstoke really had no answer for them. He'd only known, buried in the Switch's unresisting, hot little body, that he'd _needed_ to take the thing for himself. Even in his Wrollf form, the lithe little dryad had taken his engorged cock to the hilt. Had come begging on his prick like it was a pleasure. Summerstoke wanted to discover all the possible ways he could ruin the pretty little thing, never mind how doing so might socially ruin _him_.

A soft, ragged exhale broke the silence. As one, all three siblings looked to the far settee. There, the young Switch was curled up under Jem's jacket, hands clutching its gravid belly.

"What's your name?" Freddie Audley was patiently asking it, as if the Westruther-Urk siblings weren't arguing not ten feet away.

"m a Switch."

"Yes. So you've said. That's not a name."

"That's my name," the creature insisted. 

Summerstoke strode up to it. It stared up at him fearfully, eyes huge and dark in its pale face. Those eyes were one of its most shocking traits. Summerstoke had known a few Switches before this -- had known one in particular. Had _loved_ that one. That Switch had been a proper Switch, golden-haired, brown-skinned, and pale-eyed. If this creature before him had looked the same, Summerstoke would have fucked it and then left it to die of cold on the floor of the gaol. But this Switch was nothing like Covey. He was black-haired and black eyed, and several shades paler than any Switch ought be. He was some kind of halfling or mutant, and he didn't remind Summerstoke of Covey at all.

Even when Summerstoke grabbed a hank of his dirty hair, tilting the pretty pointed face up to his, this Switch reacted far too passively to be anything like Covey. 

Good.

"He has no name," Summerstoke said, and the Switch blinked and nodded, looking briefly ashamed of this. 

"Anka," Summerstoke decided. That was the dryads' word for _bird_. Covey had used it often. In their native jungles, these creatures walked lightly through the trees, hopped from branch to branch, their greenish nails emitting sticky sap to help them stick each landing. In the cold of Monrovia, they generated no such sap. They were earth-bound and miserable, and obsessed with things that could fly. But this little one wouldn't know that. It was young and alone, and seemed to have no idea how to be a dryad at all. 

"Your name," Summerstoke told it, "is Anka."

"Anka," the boy repeated obediently. So obedient. So much more obedient than Covey had ever been. Summerstoke hated that, even as it appealed to his firmed-up cock in ways Covey never had.

An idea came to him.

"I know where to take him," he announced to the room. "I know exactly what we'll do with him."

"What?" Geraldine demanded.

"Celeste," Summerstoke said. 

"Celeste?" cried Geraldine. "Not Celeste Rivenhall?"

Jem doubled up. It took a moment for Summerstoke to realize he was laughing.

"You cruel son of a bitch," Jem said. "You cruel damned _son of a bitch_."


	2. Anka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Earl schools Anka’s cunt a bit. It’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for Anka, but the jury’s out on whether the Earl is doing it to be nice.

The Switch had a name now. The Earl of Summerstoke himself had given it to him. The same Earl who had laid him down on the dirty, cold floor of the constabulary gaol and fucked him insensible. The same Earl that was as much a Wrollf as a man, sweetly petting the Switch's hair one minute, pissing into him to claim him the next.

The Switch didn't know whether to be frightened or grateful.

But no. He could think of himself like a person now. He wasn't just a Switch. He was _Anka_. The Earl had said so. And then the Earl had ordered him drawn a warm bath, the first warm bath the Sw--Anka had ever had. And for tonight Anka had a proper bedroom with a real bed in it, and a warm flannel sleeping gown, and soft sheets to cover himself up with. He should be grateful. Surely he should be grateful.

But the Earl wouldn't be keeping him.

Humans often thought he was stupid, and Wrollves did too, but he wasn't so stupid that he hadn't understood the Summerstoke siblings' lordly argument. The Earl had plans to send him to someone named Celeste. Cruel plans, supposedly.

Though the Sw--Anka well knew cruelty, a part of him didn't want to believe the Earl would be deliberately cruel to him.

This was a stupid. Everyone was cruel to him. That was how he'd landed naked in a gaol cell, leaking blood and semen from his puffy cunt. So bruised that the Earl had caressed his filthy, mottled skin and said, _They've brutalized you._ I _would not have._

Those were only words, and words meant nothing. But Anka wanted to trust in those words. The Earl had fucked him deep and slow in his already-battered arse, hitting a place inside him that went straight to his tiny Switch cock. His whole life, he'd never known what that cock was for. While whoring himself, it had served little purpose but to provide a convenient soft place for men to hurt him, to tug or hit, kick or grind beneath their boot. He'd never come from it, not like a proper man -- not until the Earl.

His thin hands snuck down to it now, found it beneath the flannel and the warm coverlet. It flopped uselessly against his slender thigh, a tiny rod of pain. It had been -- as the Earl had said -- brutalized a bit. The Switch had angered the head constable, and this was one of the ways he'd paid for that, with a bruised-purple cock. Touching it now only made tears spring to his eyes, it was so pain-riddled and sensitive.

Maybe he needed the Earl to get it to feel good again. The Earl with his piercing poison-green eyes, with his firm warm hands. The Earl had been heavy and hot on top of him, driving into him. The Switch could sometimes take or leave fucking, for all that he earned his meager bred by the act. But to be warm was a rare and delightful pleasure. The Earl had seemed to know that instinctively, shielding him from the cold of the gaol cell even before proposing to fuck Anka senseless.

That memory didn't rouse his cock, but it did go to his tight little cunt. Usually his mound stayed dry and clammed up. Now, however, he had to shift to keep from getting any wet on his fine flannels. He thought of the Earl's warm hands, and then, a little fearfully, of the cock. Longer and thicker than his own forearm. And the Earl had made him take every inch.

His skinny fingers found the nub above his cunny. He rubbed it, arching his back to get at it better. He thought of the heavy slide of the Earl's dick in his back passage, scraping his sore walls until it found that spot and sent him flying. More wet came. Enough for him to get a little finger in past his first folds, and rub at the sensitive skin there.

How would the Earl feel there? He was so big, at least when he was a Wrollf he was, that Anka knew the tearing would be unbearable. So why did thinking of it make him wetter? He'd be carved open if the Earl fucked him here. He knew what it was, to be fucked so hard it almost killed him. But still he fantasized that maybe the Earl doing that would be different. 

He rubbed up and down his little folds, pressing himself just enough to find an edge of hurt. He rubbed the nub, too, the little sensitive bead. It built something in him, but not enough of the something. When he forced a skinny finger inside past his inner folds, the intrusion was not enough to really fill him, only enough to provide an edge of discomfort. He pulled it out again. Any more than his finger would hurt, always hurt. But when he brought the sticky digit up and examined it, all he could think was that to take the Earl's cock, massive as it was, might be twenty times that hurt and still worth it.

As he considered this, cunt wet and mouth watering, the door to his chamber opened. Anka stilled, frightened. But it wasn't a stranger or a threat. Or if it was a threat, at least that threat was the Earl.

He was still so tall and broad-shouldered, easily three times Anka's size. But he had had hair tufted on the backs of his hands, before, and slitted pupils like a proper Wrollf. Now all he had was the barest down on his forearms, and his eyes were those of a normal man. The rest of his face, which had been hidden behind a cowl in the gaol, was similarly normal, the face of a handsome, wealthy human lord, with a cruelly beautiful mouth and a firm jaw.

"Anka," the Earl ordered. "Come here."

Anka got up and went, despite his better instincts, padding across the cold wood floor to him. The Earl stayed in the doorway, one broad arm on either side. Regarding Anka. Then he leaned over, and his lips were on Anka's lips.

Anka heard himself distantly make a surprised noise. He'd never been kissed before. Whores weren't worth kissing, much less Switch whores, so not even the Wrollf that had put a baby in his belly had bothered kissing him. But this Wrollf -- this _man_ \-- did so without hesitation, one of his hands curving around the back of Anka's neck. It was wet and messy, and took the breath from Anka. He was lightheaded. He tasted something animal and possessive in the Earl, and opened himself to it. When the Earl stopped and pulled back a bit, nipping at Anka's lower lip, Anna found himself whimpering. He wanted more. 

"I have to give you up for now, Anka," the Earl said, his normally cultured voice now slurred. Anka swirled his tongue around in his mouth, tasting the hint of liquor the Earl had left behind. The Earl was drunk. Normally that was bad, when a man was drunk. Or a Wrollf. Normally that meant a rough fuck, rougher even than normal. 

Anka took in a frightened breath, but did not try to move back. 

He wanted to be fucked slow and deep, like the Earl had done before. Not rough. But he couldn't seem to conceive of doing anything but accepting whatever the Earl had to give him. Anka snuck a look up at those poison-green eyes and then couldn't look away. The Earl was leaning so close, and his breath was so hot on Anka's cheek that it made Anka want to get on his knees before him, burrow into the muscular swell of his calves and legs, or climb into his lap and feel the bulge of the Earl's hot prick poking into him, scorching and insistent. 

"Get on the bed," the Earl said. "On your back. Legs spread."

Anka obeyed. Spreading his legs made his flannels bunch up, and opened him up to the cold of the room, but he tried not to complain. Only wriggled as the Earl latched the door and then came to the bed. It had seemed very large to Anka at first, but now, with the Earl consuming so much of it, it revealed itself to be pitiably small. The Earl positioned himself between Anka's splayed legs, rubbing the skinny limbs distractedly for a moment.

"Sir...?" Anka tried, finding his voice. He didn't know what to call the Earl. This was an _Earl_ \-- was it 'm'lord,' then? Or just 'Earl'?

The Earl's lips quirked.

"You called me 'Master Summer' before," he said, sounding a bit teasing.

Anka had, without hesitation. He flushed now to think of it. 

"Master Summer--" he tried.

"'My lord' will do in public," the Earl said. "But between us, I'm still your Master. Do you understand?"

Anka nodded, his mouth going dry. The Earl's smile deepened.

"I'm sending you to -- to a friend," he said. "She will have work for you, Anka. Hard work, if I know her. But she is very nice and fair, in her way. And I expect it's the sort of work you're familiar with."

Anka swallowed hard. The only work he was truly familiar with was whoring. As if to confirm this, the Earl's long fingers strayed down to his arse, which was sore as anything after the hard fuck the Earl had given him. The Earl tapped the little rim.

"She'll see you're good for it right away," he murmured. "At least back here. But there is, Anka, the trouble of your cunt. I expect it's often far, far too tight for you to take anything in there pleasantly. Do you know why that is?"

Anka squirmed. He more or less knew why. The Earl himself had commented on it, back in the gaol, and so had a few others he'd met.

"My kind--I don't know much about my kind," he said uncertainly. "But--but I think we get tight like this when we're pregnant, like. I think it's so's nothing gets in and hurts the baby."

The Earl hummed his approval, a low and rough sound that went straight to Anka's cunny. 

"And if you were in a world where nearly every creature was as mildly equipped as you are, and cared about your comfort," the Earl said, tweaking the tip of Anka's cocklet and making him whine a bit, "that would be that. But you're in Monrovia. You've taken a few hard poles in here, haven't you, Anka? Even with the pain it gives you?"

Anka nodded miserably. Men, Wrollves, Eelies and Peskies alike -- they all seemed to enjoy forcing their way into his too-tight cunt. Never mind that it made him bleed and cry and hurt so much.

"It's hard to see whether Celeste will see this as an asset or not. It's a damned inconvenience from a man's perspective, Anka. Cunts, you see, are made to be fucked."

As he spoke, the Earl rubbed his way past Anka's outer lips, making him whine a bit more. The Earls' fingers were bigger and hotter than his own, and they were making him so wet he could scarcely think.

"Come, do some of the work yourself, lazy thing," the Earl chided gently. 

He grabbed one of Anka's hands and then their fingers were rubbing together, the Earl guiding him. The Earl made it rough, a near-painful drag. But part of the roughness was doing something to a deep, sorry little part of Anka that was used to rough. That needed things to be rough. 

As pain mingled with something almost like pleasure, the Earl added, almost conversationally, "You _do_ know how to open yourself up, don't you?"

"It's never enough," Anka sobbed. "'m too tight, my lord."

"Ah," said the Earl. "Then how about this?"

He pulled Anka's hand away. His handsome face descended between Anka's legs. Then his tongue was on Anka's cunt. 

Anka had only ever felt something like this once before, and the circumstances then were best not thought of. This was somehow both better and worse. It was certainly more overwhelming. The Earl licked at that slit between his outer lips, daring it to clamp shut. Gently at first. Slowly. One of his long-fingered hands found the same bead Anka had been playing with earlier, and ghosted over it. Anka whined.

But the Earl ignored him, busy excavating him. He peeled Anka's slit open with his tongue over and over, making Anka's breath hitch. It didn't hurt anymore, but the deliberate hot strokes made him understand how vulnerable he was down there. He kept trying to close, and the Earl's tongue kept gently lathing him open. Each time getting him wetter. 

He started jerking his hips almost without thinking. The Earl chuckled. One of those impossibly long fingers came up and joined the tongue, and for a moment Anka was hopeful for more of the slow, gentle treatment. Instead it pried past the next folds. As the Earl licked the sensitive pale green of Anka's cunt, that finger insistently, slowly plumbed Anka's channel. It was as uncomfortable as Anka's own finger had been, at first. 

Then the tongue joined it, probing in. Anka almost lurched from the bed with a cry. He'd had much, much bigger things in him than this, but this was so slow and deliberate that the experiences couldn't really be compared. This somehow left him feeling even more powerless than many a hard fuck had. The Earl was taking his time with Anka, licking and rubbing and gently pulling him open. Anka's breaths came hard and fast as a result. He heard himself hiccuping and couldn't quite understand why. 

The Earl pulled up only long enough to mutter, "I should have brought lube. I do forget, you know. I expect my lovers to prepare themselves. Remember that."

Then a second finger was slowly forcing its way in. With two, the Earl could scissor the tight little tunnel. Just a bit. Just enough to make space for the rough, hot tongue that left Anka moaning. Now it really felt good. Anka's hips moved in time with the tongue, wanting more. When the Earl forced in his third finger and his thumb, _making_ Anka stay open, applying the pressure of almost his whole hand, the pain was bearable because of the way he kept licking. Soothing. His fingers were demanding, but his tongue was twisting, probing. Making Anka feel nice. Making Anka want more.

When the Earl's mouth retreated, Anka gave an involuntary cry of dismay. He felt balanced on the Earl's fingers, still prying him open. His cunt twitched around them, protesting its abandonment.

"I like the little sounds you make," the Earl said, his green eyes on Anka's own. "Jem suggested I cut out your tongue, you know. But I like your sounds. Besides, you won't tell a soul about my...occasional furriness. Will you?"

Anka shook his head wildly. He wouldn't. He wouldn't betray the Earl. He'd rather cut out his tongue himself than do that. It was a worthless tongue anyway. It couldn't be anything so marvelous as the one that had just been licking him open.

"No, no, Master. I won't tell. Oh, Master, please--"

"Please what?" the Earl said sharply.

"Your mouth, Master. Oh, _please_ \--"

"That's right," said the Earl with a grin. "I can please you. Keep my secrets, Anka, and I will please you beyond your wildest dreams. And there are not many that would do that for you, are there?"

Anka nodded his agreement. It was true. He knew from experience -- most men were nothing so kind as the Earl was being. Even now, the same fingers painfully holding him open were tilting inside him in just the right way. Most people just brought pain, but the Earl, when he brought pain, could bring pleasure too. 

The Earl leaned down again. He resumed licking Anka, coaxing him open. Each time his tongue would find a spot that was good, his fingers would twist and add a hint of _too much_. Anka felt both violated and cared for. He felt like maybe he'd never known how to properly take a cock in his cunt, how to spread enough so it wouldn't hurt. But maybe the Earl could teach his clammed-up, worthless body. Maybe the Earl could make it good. 

The Earl's fingers dragged up against his insides, just a bit too much. The friction, combined with the warmth of his tongue, sent Anka over the edge. The need inside him broke -- _he_ broke -- and then he was crying out and coming. His flannels were still bunched up safely about his rounded stomach, but the sheets beneath him were soaked. The Earl must be soaked too, but he didn't stop his attentions. He stopped being gentle, though, so that as Anka rode the wave of pleasure he began to lick in earnest, to lick and finger-fuck, like he wanted to eat Anka right up.

"Master," Anka hiccuped, because it was too much. "O-oh, Master. _Master_."

He'd forgotten how to give thanks. He'd forgotten nearly everything. He shook through his orgasm and begged for he knew not what, as his new Master tongue-fucked him sore.


	3. The Loan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anka shows what he's good for.

If Summerstoke hated the thought of giving his Switch over to Celeste, then at least he had the comfort of knowing the Switch hated it too.

Anka had been begging for his cock by the end there. So Summerstoke had undone his trousers and let it out so Anka could see it in its human form. His prick had been painfully hard, straining at his lordly silks. It was less long and thick than it was in his Wrollf form, but still impressive for a man's. 

Anka would have to get used to both versions. Learn how to take both. 

Still, just then, he didn't let Anka have it. Robert Westruther, Earl of Summerstoke, was a respectable sort, not known to be much of a whoremonger. But the Wrollf inside him well understood how to fuck a pretty whore. A whore's whole business was cocks, so cocks weren't special to a whore. Cocks lost their mystique. No, the trick had to be to find other things to make Anka believe him indispensable, to set Anka gagging for it. 

The trick was to make Anka see his cock as a rare, longed-for reward.

"Did you like it in your arse?" Summerstoke had asked him huskily, already knowing the answer.

Anka had come so prettily on Summerstoke's mouth that he was mostly past language, but he'd nodded vigorously and managed a dazed, "Yes. Oh, yes, Master."

So, as a reward for that reply, Summerstoke had put the tip of his cock to Anka's plump little cunt. Dragged it down through just the outer lips.

"Would you like it in here? Or would you like my tongue again? You can only pick one."

Tears -- actual, genuine tears -- had come to the little dryad's eyes. Summerstoke was fairly sure Anka had no idea they were there.

"Your tongue is so good," he'd hiccuped, his accent rough and common as the slum he claimed to hail from. "S-so good. But I--I pick your cock, Master. If it pleases you."

Oh, it did. It would. Still, Summerstoke had held off. He'd kept only rubbing his tip on Anka's cunt, going no further than just past Anka's outer lips. To where the skin was flushed and sensitive and drooling. Rubbing up, then down. It took herculean reserves of will. But it was worth it when the young Switch began shaking his hips in time with it, little gasps coming from his mouth. 

"Did you like it when I pissed in you?" Summerstoke had asked him then. Dragging his cock against that hungry cunt still. Leisurely about it. It was damned torture to hold off like that, but it was worth it to see the echoing torture of pure need written on Anka's face.

"Y-yes. I think so, Master."

Summerstoke noted the hesitation. Perhaps Anka hadn't really liked it, but he'd accepted it. And he was young and malleable, not like Covey had been, and would accept it again. He'd actually begged Summerstoke for his Wrollf's knot, but Summerstoke tended to get maudlin and attached to the things he knotted. 

He knew better by now than to knot a Switch. 

So he'd marked Anka another way.

"What did you like better -- coming from your cunt, or your little cock?"

This had stumped Anka. Perhaps because it was just hitting the creature that Summerstoke had made him come from both. 

Anka had been dumped alone and unconscious in Summerstoke's gaol cell, leaking blood and come from his holes. His little cock had been tortured until it was purple, and his tiny breasts and skinny backside mottled with bruises. Even the round swell of his belly -- and Summerstoke intended to find out precisely what had caused _that_ , because it smelled like another Wrollf, something he had mixed feelings about -- had borne a few older bruises. 

He would bet good money that few men bothered with Anka's pleasure. The little Switch's face confirmed it, his mouth briefly forming an 'o' of surprise.

Then his answer had come. Soft and a bit shamed, but entirely the right answer.

"I -- I liked coming from my cock, Master. Not because it was better. But because I was coming from _your_ cock, Master."

Oh, but Summerstoke _hated_ the thought of giving this creature away to Celeste!

He'd come all over Anka's face as a reward, knowing that the heat of his cum would be a balm to the dryad. Dryads liked to be warm, after all. That was why they were born in groups, it was said, so they could huddle together all their lives. But Anka was alone and pathetic. Anka reacted like he knew no warmth but this shower of cum, and Anka even thanked Summerstoke for it. 

Anka also thanked him for the cock cage Summerstoke forced on his battered little cocklet a few minutes later. Cried, but thanked him.

"If you have the only key, Master, does that mean y--you'll visit me? Even after I go to this Celeste?"

"Clever," Summerstoke had praised him. "That's just right."

He was surprised that the Switch had guessed right. Anka did not seem especially intelligent, if Summerstoke was being honest. But perhaps he was smarter than he looked. As further reward, the next morning, he'd pissed on Anka before the dryad had a bath. On his little puffy tits, his long eyelashes. His bare, rounded belly.

He made Anka sit in it for a few minutes. The dryad had made the best of it, scrunching up his face and quietly taking it, sweet as anything. Again thanking Summerstoke, afterwards, for giving him something so warm.

Summerstoke might be giving -- no. _Lending_ him to Celeste. But he intended to keep being Anka's master.

-

Celeste lived just outside the Capitol, in a fine manse in a fine suburb called Wakeshire. It was green and misty there. Anka peered out of the carriage at the trees like he'd never seen so many, and perhaps he never had. While most dryads were perfectly obsessed with trees, when quizzed about his origins Anka had claimed to hail from the Gin Tangle, a notorious slum where the only tree was the gallows tree outside the constabulary. 

Summerstoke let him look for a few minutes. Then he wound a fist in the boy's black hair and dragged his head down to rest on his own groin. Anka reacted like this was perfectly normal. A born whore, he nuzzled patiently at the half-hard prick beneath Summerstoke's silks. 

Though his gaze did wander once or twice back to the carriage windows.

Freddie Audley, meanwhile, said, "Surely fucking his mouth can wait until Celeste's, Summerstoke." This was rich, as Summerstoke had seen Freddie fuck many a whore's mouth in moments where he'd have far preferred to be watching something else. 

But he was right. It could wait. Soon enough they were at the elm-shaded drive leading to Celeste's manse, or, as it was better known: Miss Rivenhall's Academy for Young Ladies. 

It was astonishing, to think that Celeste ran the most exclusive school for girls in all of Monrovia. Ran it and was good at it. Just about every young lady of breeding -- save Geraldine, who'd had to be educated at home for obvious reasons -- graduated from Miss Rivenhall's Academy. All this despite the fact that Celeste Rivenhall was the bastard, half-inhuman daughter of Lord Taverner. 

Very publicly half-inhuman.

She was waiting for them at the end of her drive with Jem, who'd left in the early hours of the morning to alert her to Summerstoke's plans. She was mostly human seeming, and as lovely as ever, with her colorless blonde hair, cold grey eyes, and her manner of shimmering into sight. Celeste always seemed to suck all sound and sensation out of every room when she walked into it.

Of course she did. She was half-Eelie. Celeste even had their cold grey tentacles, well-hidden somewhere beneath her gorgeous gowns. But only the brave and the very foolish remarked on that. Celeste might be a bastard, but she was a beloved one to her wealthy, famous father. And Lord Taverner had given her the school so that she could establish herself as above reproach. Raising young ladies required a morally peerless woman, and it suited Lord Taverner to declare his daughter so. To let Celeste cultivate a reputation for being a good role model for her charges despite her muddled background.

To the peerage, Celeste Rivenhall was the rare exception, walking proof that even a drop of Taverner blood could drive out any impurity.

On the surface.

All of Celeste's teachers were humans of decent breeding. So was the manse's cook, and the housekeeper, and most of the maids. But for the meanest tasks about the manse, Celeste sometimes employed an inhuman or two. As an act of charity. To rehabilitate the creatures, and teach them proper Monrovian customs. 

And so that interested lords courting their future brides, bored papas visiting their delightful daughters, could have...discreet assignations. Not the beautiful flowers of the peerage that were their future wives, their sisters, their little nieces. But a sort they could be rougher with, in the back rooms. 

Many a lord had picked up both a bride and a mistress at Celeste's school. It made the exorbitant tuition well worth it for the doting fathers. And for the inhumans, well. They graduated to lives of dedicated service to new masters, who would tell any who might listen of just how well Celeste had rehabilitated the new parlor maid or gardener. 

Summerstoke had met Celeste during Geraldine's first and only season. Celeste had not hit it off with Geraldine, indeed the women found each other insufferable, but she _had_ seen something in Summerstoke. She saw the need in him. The need of a half-inhuman who could never, ever truly indulge his wildest side. Who wanted nothing more than to explore others like himself. She'd promptly invited him and Freddie to tour the school, ostensibly so that Freddie could visit his cousin, Lady Wrattlay.

And while Freddie had played the gentleman, Summerstoke and Celeste had become fast friends, together ploughing a Wrollf so hard they reduced it to shudders and yips.

They remained friends. Celeste gave him a chaste, cold kiss now as he stepped from the carriage. All Celeste's kisses were like that, but to be kissed by Celeste at all meant she trusted you to not comment on the eerie chill that blanketed her, the Eelieness of her. There were few men she trusted like that. Possibly only Summerstoke and her own father.

Then she smiled down at the little Switch trying desperately to hide behind Summerstoke. 

"Oh, this is the poor thing you rescued from that gaol. Come here, boy, and let me look at you."

Summerstoke had to shove him forward. It occurred to him that Anka would of course fear Celeste. Anka's people needed warmth, and Eelies were frightfully cold. Dangerously cold to a dryad. Perhaps Anka had even been fucked by a few, and learned that for himself. It would explain why the little Switch was visibly trembling.

Celeste gave no indication that she noted it. She tilted Anka's chin this way and that with a gloved hand.

"My goodness. We've never had anything like you here before."

Summerstoke doubted there was anything else quite like Anka. The Capitol was full of Wrollves, Eelies, even Peskies, if you knew where to look. But the dryads -- well. The cold here often killed them well before they could get up to having bizarre little mutated brunette babies. Dryads were almost as rare in Monrovia as Omnions and Snellings. Half-dryads were rarer still. This probably explained why Anka was alone. The rest of the boy's clutch, Summerstoke suspected, had likely simply frozen to death somewhere in the hellish bowels of the workhouse Anka claimed to have been born in. 

Summerstoke would make some enquiries about that. Perhaps he could come up with a second Anka, somewhere. Though, really, even just one Anka was a prospect so odd, unique, and enticing that the young dryad seemed too good to be true.

"Look at all this fine hair," Celeste was saying now, stroking Anka's long dark locks. "And those big black eyes! My word! We shall have to keep you busy, won't we? Otherwise you might run into the girls, and they _will_ be jealous of how lovely you are. But you're not here to see the girls. You're here to learn to be an upright, hardworking soul, aren't you?"

Anka nodded, or possibly Celeste's hand on his chin made him nod, but either way it was the same thing. Then, with a whirl of grey silk skirts, Celeste turned and led the way into the manse, narrating along the way.

"Of course Mr. Shamrock, the watchman, is always guarding the door. You'll find it makes you feel lovely and safe. It always does so for _me_. I'll have Betty, the head maid, show you the upper rooms here later, but really you won't have to worry about those. We're starting you down in the coal cellar, dear. If you're good. Otherwise you will have to help Stan on the grounds, and we're having such an awful, cold, wet winter, aren't we? I don't think you'd like the grounds very much. You shall have to try to be good. You will try, won't you? For _me_. And--"

It continued in much this way for at least twenty minutes. Celeste's chatter was a light, insubstantial thing, designed to lull her targets. Just about everything would narrow to the sound of her voice. She took them through a few halls and rooms, just enough for her studious charges to perk up and notice that Miss Rivenhall was rehabilitating a new whore from the Capitol. A sort of pregnant elf, this time.

This piece of information would no doubt make its way into many letters home. Those letters would reach approving mothers, who liked to hear of inhumans being weaned of their sinfulness. And plump, greedy-eyed fathers, licking their lips, eager to know just what Celeste was offering them now. 

Summerstoke was almost jolted from the reverie Celeste's talk brought on by the latter thought. He didn't like it. He had to stifle a growl.

But now they were at Celeste's private room, in the back of the manse, where the young flowers that were her charges were quite forbidden. Celeste ushered them inside -- himself, Anka, Freddie, and Jem -- and then Jem shut the door. 

The chatter stopped. Celeste threw herself onto her chaise. She was still colorless, but now less cold, somehow. Some of the sound, the being she had sucked up, leached back into all of them. Summerstoke found himself breathing out hard, and could see Freddie doing the same. Only Anka didn't relax. He stood before Celeste on the gray carpet, still shivering with fright. 

Celeste only said, "I can be hot or cold, little Switch. It's up to you." Then, to Summerstoke, "What's his name, anyway? Jem didn't tell me."

"Anka," Summerstoke said, striding to join her on the chaise. Celeste picked up a bowl of cherries from a side table, gorged herself on a few, then offered it to him. He declined. The bowl was passed to Freddie Audley instead.

"How far along is that belly, then? Been a while since I had a pregnant whore."

Summerstoke didn't actually know. But he could smell, faintly, that the little lumps in Ankh's belly were part Wrollf. The smell would be overpowering to a full Wrollf -- indeed, it was the whole reason Jem could scarcely look at Anka without making a sour face -- but to him it was just a tantalizing familiarity. That scent told him the at least part of the clutch was likely much bigger than a human babe, which meant Anka was likely not so far along as some might guess.

"I'd wager about two months. A Wrollf whelped him. Not one we know," Summerstoke guessed, locking eyes with Anka to let him know he could correct him if he was wrong.

Anka didn't. He only nodded vigorously.

"And how old?"

Summerstoke knew that -- he'd quizzed Anka on it on their way from the gaol to his townhouse. The answer hadn't pleased his sister, even after Summerstoke had inventively added a year in the hopes that Geraldine would be less sour about the whole thing. Now he subtracted a year, because Celeste was in many ways the opposite of Geraldine. Celeste would know firsthand how very valuable a _young_ Switch was, a Switch with years ahead of him before he matured properly.

"He has no idea, but thinks it would be fair to say perhaps fifteen."

"Hmmm. The pointed ears'll bring them in," Celeste noted, taking the cherries back from Freddie and eating a few more. "You wouldn't believe what perverts like those pointed jungle elf ears. And it's nice that he's green at the tips -- those green fingernails. And in a few years his nipples will soon get nice and green too. Are the toenails green as well?"

Summerstoke nodded. That had been one of the first things he'd noticed about the freezing young dryad in the gaol cell. Just like Covey, Anka was green-veined, particularly along his fingers and feet, where the green became intense and vivid. His nails were all perfect points of emerald.

"Let's see them," Celeste said. "Let's see all of it."

Anka didn't move at first. He needed Summerstoke's nod. Summerstoke tried not to be too pleased about that.

Then the Switch was obediently taking off his clothes, the flannel trousers and jacket Geraldine had produced for him from somewhere, and the too-big white shirt. Even the long stockings and the slippers that had come from some maid, and were the only things that had fit his slender feet. He fidgeted a bit when he was naked, though Summerstoke could hardly see why -- only Celeste hadn't seen him naked before.

Celeste handed her bowl of cherries off to Freddie again, then stood. She was not a large woman, indeed she and Anka were of a height, but something about Anka seemed pitifully small where Celeste seemed predatory. She circled Anka, prodding at his skinny and still plainly-fucked arse ("Useless, but at least he's clearly had experience giving it up"), his round belly ("Someone's going to like painting that in spend"), the fading bruises on his little tits ("I do hope he's not a fucking _crier_ \-- I hate those.") 

Anka was perfectly still. But his dark eyes were wide and scared, and Summerstoke could see him trying to bite his lip to keep from whimpering. It did something to Summerstoke. It drove an ugly splinter of possessive rage deeper into him, a splinter he'd quite forgotten was there at all and that was entirely unnecessary right now.

Because Summerstoke had seen this before. He'd brought Celeste Wrollves and Peskies, sad little quarter-Eelie maids who were desperate for a dry bed and happy to get fucked every night in it. He knew how Celeste was, knew her clinical and detached eye was only calculating how much she could charge for them. Knew this was her business, and that she was good at it, and that she didn't ever let them get too wrecked, even, because then she was out on the profits.

He was still growling again, starting up from the chaise with such force that he knocked the cherries from Freddie's hands, making Freddie yelp. Celeste had by now reached Anka's caged cock. She rolled her eyes at it, then at Summerstoke.

"Of course," she said sourly. "Jem told me. This isn't a gift. It's a loan. Which does bring me to how we will split the profits. As I'll be housing and feeding him, and probably paying for the doctor to deliver his babe, not to mention saving you from looking too much like a deviant, I was thinking eighty-twenty."

"If the eighty is mine," Summerstoke practically barked, "then we're in agreement."

He knew that wasn't at all reasonable. He still disliked the thought of giving any of Anka away too easily. Even if now Celeste's gray eyes were narrowing with vicious purpose.

"You do realize that the bigger my take is per fuck, the fewer men I'll have fuck him. It's simple math, Summerstoke. I don't take in whores that don't make me money. If he's here, he'll have to earn at least a few times his keep. So it's really up to you how loose you want that cunt to get."

As she spoke, the sound dropped away again. The room became colder, cold enough to make Anka huddle in on himself suddenly and whimper a bit. Some of the world seemed to fade and go grey. But Summerstoke would not let himself be bullied so easily. He brought himself to his full height, heard his voice going raspy and Wrollf-deep. Tasted the blood-taste he got when he was close to his other form.

" _I_ will gladly pay for his keep, so long as we're clear he's mine--"

Now he could distantly hear Jem groaning.

"Right, leave even more of a bloody paper trail linking you to the whore, because that gets us out of this muddle--"

"Hang on," cut in Freddie's clear, cultured voice. "Dash it, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Before we can work out how much each of you should get for his, er, _work_ , we ought to work out how much Celeste should charge for him. That is to say, how much is a fuck with him even worth?"

Freddie sounded hopeful and reasonable, as Freddie often did. He was probably not terribly interested in what Anka was worth, not interested in Anka at all, but he was a born peacekeeper. When Celeste straightened up, and the sound came back, Summerstoke could hear Freddie's exhale of relief.

"That's not a bad thought, Freddie, dear," Celeste said. "I do like a demonstration, when they first start."

-

She flatly refused to have Summerstoke assist with the demonstration. 

"I don't need you bloody guiding him, Summerstoke. I need to know what his own instincts are, so I'll know how I need to train him up."

This brought Summerstoke up short. Not merely because it was sensible. But also because he, himself, had no notion of what Anka's instincts were. The beauty of Anka was that Anka seemed to have no instincts. He was entirely obedient to Summerstoke's every whim, and had been ever since Summerstoke had picked him up off that gaol floor and proposed that he and Jem fill the little Switch up with cock.

Anka had looked delightful with Summerstoke's prick inside him and Jem's huge Wrollf pole leaking precum all over his dazed face. Felt delightful, too. Probably by that point every copper in the constabulary had fucked him, but he'd still been a tight, twitching hole for Summerstoke, his pretty, sluttish belly jerking with every thrust the Earl had given him. 

Still, now the Earl was curious to know what Anka might do if he had no direction at all. _That_ would dictate the sort of whore Anka was to be, more than anything else.

Luckily, here both Jem and Freddie came to the rescue. Anka wasn't Freddie's type -- Freddie had a taste for larger partners -- and Jem had been persistently uninterested in the Switch ever since he'd scented the pregnancy. But this, if anything, was a comfort. Summerstoke wasn't ready to see Anka with someone who might actively desire him. That was the whole trouble. So long as Anka was before him, Summerstoke wanted Anka to be no one's but his. 

And yet he had to admit that Anka was a vision, kneeling naked between Freddie and Jem. 

"Y'mean I just...do whatever I like with 'em?" he asked Celeste half-fearfully, the Gin Tangle strong in his voice now. 

"Do whatever I like with them, _Mistress_. And yes. What you think you should do, if you're told to please them. Which is what I'm telling you to do. And don't you dare look at Summerstoke. He won't be here to direct you much of the time. You can gag on his cock when he is here, but mostly you'll be on your own."

"Yes, Mistress," Anka said obediently, and ripped his gaze away from Summerstoke's, looking alarmed and unhappy.

He undressed Freddie first. He narrated it as he did it, which no one had told him to do, but clearly the fright in him made him wish to justify his choices to the pair on the chaise, the pair that would for the foreseeable future feed and clothe and most thoroughly own him. 

"M-mister Audley, he's a proper gentleman, and it wouldn't do to make him wait," Anka said, voice going up at the end like it was a bit of a question. 

Summerstoke nodded, despite Celeste's admonitions. Anka had the right instinct. The Honorable Freddie Audley was the youngest and most lackadaisical son of the Baron de Vrees, and a grandson of one of the King's former mistresses. Thus, for all his polite, peacekeeping ways, Freddie was not used to waiting. No man of his caliber would be. Anka would have to learn to spot that if he was to serve gentlemen.

Anka's thin, green-tipped fingers undid Freddie's trousers. He rubbed his cheek against the silk of Freddie's underthings, against the half-hard bulge there. His pretty dark eyes looked up at Freddie as he breathed on the silk-clad pole, coaxing it awake. "Can tell he's a gentleman because of how fine he is. His fine clothes and his gold hair, like. He's proper beautiful."

"Thank you, dear," Freddie said. He let Anka take out his cock, a decent-sized thing, and made a happy sound when Anka immediately put his mouth to the tip, getting it nice and wet.

"I'll be-be cleanin' Mister Audley with m'mouth," Anka said, pulling himself off of it long enough to say so. "But I don't want to forget Mister Jem--"

"Damn right," Jem half-growled. "Feelin' stupid standing here ignored."

Anka flushed. It made a pretty, brief green appear all over him. He kept licking Freddie's cock, lapping it to full hardness. But now his slim hands reached for Jem's trouser fastenings.

"M-mister Jem may not be a gentleman," Anka said breathlessly, between licks, "but he is a Wrollf, and he'll want me givin' it up to him like he owns me. But I know another Wrollf's been in m'cunt, and Master, you were in my arse not so long ago. And Mister Jem may not like any other Wrollf's pickings--"

Jem grunted. That was so.

"B-but I could push m'tits together for him. Or I could bring 'im off with my hands -- I'm _good_ at that, I am. Mister Jem's cock will be too big to take in m'throat, but a Wrollf like him'll just want me good and marked with his cum by the end of it. Want me drenched like a right bitch."

Now the sound Jem made was far, far more satisfied than a grunt. Summerstoke only distantly noted it. His own cock was firming up, because of how wonderingly, how worshipfully Anka had managed to say _big_.

He had his mouth on Freddie still, expertly sucking him like the used little trollop he was. But he was looking back at where his fingers rubbed the massive bulge of Jem's cock. Wrollf cock was always impressive, and Anka was so impressed he seemed half-hypnotized. When he managed to get the great pole free, he moaned at the sight of it flopping out. It was long and thick and framed by Jem's coarse black pubic hair, augmented by Jem's huge hanging ballsack. Anka seemed unable to look away from it. His moan clearly reverberated around Freddie's dick, making that amiable gentleman throw his head back and bite off a satisfied curse of his own.

This brought Anka back to earth a bit.

"Beg-beggin' Mister Audley's pardon," he said, a bit shamefully. "I did promise to clean him good."

He returned his attention to Freddie's dick, pulling the foreskin carefully back. Freddie was more or less clean, but Anka did not shy away from lathing up whatever smegma there was, the sight impossibly lewd. Summerstoke gave a groan despite himself, and began to undo his own trousers. His prick would burst them if he didn't. 

"Perhaps both good sirs could line up, like?" Anka suggested, a bit breathlessly. "I--I'd like both cocks in front of me. It's a bit hard to give them proper attention like this."

He sounded half-afraid someone would punish him for that request, and was visibly relieved when Jem moved forward. Now, rather than Anka falling between the men, he kneeled before two hungry pricks, Freddie's trim pink one and Jem's rather terrifying pole. Anka stared at them for a moment, sizing them up, then licked his lips. 

Jem received the same treatment Freddie had. Anka had by now given up narrating, and simply dove in to the herculean task of pulling back that rough Wrollf foreskin and tasting that cockhead, no doubt quite a bit dirtier than Freddie's. His thin hands then went back to Freddie, proving he did in fact know how to stroke a prick, decided and firm about it. His little tongue lapped and drooled on Jem in the meantime. He even migrated up to the big, smelly Wrollf balls and inhaled Jem's scent rather beautifully, got his face well-buried in the sweat and musk that had to be there. 

Then he was switching off again. It was no easy feat, pleasing two cocks at once, but Anka managed. Whenever one cock had his mouth, the other had his nimble fingers. Summerstoke particularly appreciated the sight of those slender green digits trying vainly to encircle Jem, who was almost too thick for that. Anka actually made a little disappointed noise when he realized this. It seemed to Summerstoke that the cock he favored slightly was Jem's, that something about the fear Jem roused in him also excited the little Switch.

Eventually, Anka stumbled up and rearranged himself again, not asking permission this time. This time he had his hands around a groaning Freddie's cock. The young man's golden head was thrown back with how close he was to coming. Anka guided his prick to his back hole. Freddie grabbed Anka's hips without hesitation and buried himself in that battered little arse. 

The hole could not be very tight. Not a day earlier, after all, Summerstoke had fucked it with fervor, and so too had a fair few policemen, probably. The rim was loose and flushed with green blood, winking obscenely still. And it had to be dry. Freddie's prick still had to be scraping the abused flesh. But Freddie liked a bit of pain, and set himself to the task of fucking Anka with great gusto. As the fine young gentleman pounded him, Anka's only reaction was to cry a bit at the painful sensation, his tears running onto Jem's cock.

This cock now had most of his attention. He palmed the balls, his hand looking obscenely thin and weak by comparison. With his other hand he rubbed the big head over his own face. He sucked it in each time it came to his mouth, cheeks hollowing, but still it was too big to swallow fully. So Anka settled for rubbing it with both hands, getting his whole upper body into working it, while his mouth bobbed on the tip. Jem plainly enjoyed this. He grabbed the Switch's black hair and roughly assisted, driving what he could into the boy's slender throat.

By now Summerstoke himself was close to coming. The sight of this debauchery shouldn't have so delighted him. He would have preferred to be a participant. But he was enjoying himself despite being forced to merely watch. Anka was such a pretty, filthy thing, and so easy to abuse. Even Celeste was breathing heavily now, aroused by the sight.

Freddie soon stilled and, with a cry, latched his hands harder on Anka's hips and came in Anka's bottom. At the same time, Jem gave a great growl. His thick Wrollf cum choked Anka. It was too much for the Switch to take. The boy whimpered and pulled off Jem's cock, and Jem bathed his face and hair. The sight brought Summerstoke to the edge as well. It was all he could do to struggle up and join the others, adding his cum to the lot, painting Anka's face and hair and back with ropes of it.

Damn the Countess of Salford, and damn Allerton. _Damn_ them. if only he could keep this creature, rather than having to loan Anka to Celeste.

In the end, Celeste argued for sixty-forty, in her favor. Summerstoke could live with that. He was busy, busy making plans for how to return to Anka. He had a feeling he would be visiting often. 


	4. Wagers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anka forgets an important lesson. Anka swiftly comes to regret that.

Mistress Rivenhall gave Anka two clean grey flannel smocks, two sets of white flannel stockings, a white apron, and a cake of soap to launder it all with. 

He was also to wash himself once a week, once all the rest of the household had washed. He was to store his things on the little shelf in his room. That room was windowless and small but very warm, as it was down by the coal cellar. There he had a narrow iron-framed bed with a straw-stuffed mattress. Unlike the human maids, who all lived in surrounding Wakeshire and went home at the end of their shifts, Anka was to stay in the big manse, and thus he would need a bed of his own.

There were so many human maids -- and so many fine, pretty human ladies they all served -- that Anka was sure he would never know all their names. This was not much of a problem, however, as Mistress Rivenhall was clear that he need not say anything to any of them but a respectful "yes, Miss," or, only if necessary, a very apologetic "no, Miss, but I shall do my best."

Anka had grown up in the Gin Tangle, where the humans were as wretched and low as any inhuman. But here in Wakeshire it was clear as day that there was a difference between him and all the human women. He was so far below them that it would be an insult if something like him ever presumed to use their names.

During the day, he was to do whatever the maids told him, and, because Mistress Rivenhall wanted to show him what she meant by her being _warm_ , he was to make sure the coal was brought up from the cellar. This meant struggling with heavy buckets of the stuff, dragging it up from the cellar to even the high reaches of the house, but Anka soon learned to be grateful for the task. The coal cellar was dark and filthy, but warm, too. He never shivered there. It was always a relief to come down and find its lovely heat waiting for him again.

It was there that he met a fellow inhuman. Lookoo, who worked stoking the school's great big boiler.

Lookoo was a Snelling. Anka had never met a Snelling before. Lookoo was a big fat wall of a creature, entirely naked to cope with the heat, with unseeing eyes and a great snout he used to sniff his way about the boiler room. Mistress Rivenhall let him sniff Anka when they were introduced, and instructed Anka to stand very still so the quiet Snelling could come to know his scent. As Anka did so, Lookoo's bizarre cock, which rose from his soot-stained fat folds like a corkscrew, rubbed against Anka's grey smock, leaving trails of slimy precum on it.

"If I were to make you fuck him," Mistress Rivenhall said conversationally, "You'd find your cervix drilled open by the end."

Lookoo gave a slow, snout-y smile.

"Best not, Mistress," he said, the words coming deep and ponderous. "Th'little baby in him would fall out, I'd fuck him so good."

Anka shivered, despite the lovely heat, and found himself clutching his belly.

"P-please, no--" he begged, making Mistress Rivenhall and Lookoo both laugh at him.

After this he was to learn what Mistress Rivenhall meant by _cold_.

In addition to Anka and Lookoo, there was a third inhuman working at the school, this time as a groundskeeper. His name was Stan Sneel, and he kept mostly to the farthest bits of ground where he farmed vegetables and stayed out of sight of the fine ladies. This was necessary. Stan was only half-inhuman, but the half was something called a Drukk. This meant that he had hooves instead of feet, a hairy tail, and a ripe, rancid-smelling cock that was always hard. Its engorged brown head peeked up from the band of his filthy old-fashioned breeches. 

Mistress had Anka work with Stan for a day, in the freezing cold fields. Anka discovered that Stan liked nothing more than to wait until the Switch was occupied trying to hoe or rake, sneak up behind him, flip up his smock, and toss a pail of freezing water on Anka's backside. The cold was _horrible_ , biting and nipping at Anka's sensitive bits. And even worse was how Stan would send up his great jittering laughter and then close freezing, hairy fingers on Anka's hips. He'd rut Anka right there in the open, his cold cock like a greasy sausage ramming into Anka's holes. Any hole. Stan quickly established that he wasn't picky.

Anka was sore and sobbing, and very dirty, by the end of that day. When he trooped back to the manse at dusk, as the fine ladies were upstairs preparing for bed, quite ignorant of the ordeal he had had, Mistress was waiting for him on the back step.

"I sent you to work with Stan so you'd know that, if I told you to fuck poor Lookoo, it would be a kindness by comparison. Stan doesn't fuck so good, does he, little Switch?"

Anka shook his tear-stained head vigorously. Stan had fucked him and fucked him, but had seemed to be deliberately avoiding causing him any pleasure. At one point he'd forced Anka's head into the ice cold water of the pig trough and held it there while the Switch had thrashed. At another point, he'd pulled Anka's smock nearly all the way up to his neck and forced the Switch to the ground. Then he'd jumped atop him, and ground Anka's sensitive flesh into a spiky, half-frozen vegetable patch as he'd thrust into him, making the Switch bleed and cry from pain.

"Stan sleeps in the pigpen," Mistress noted. "And he's always cold. If you're very, very bad, I shall make you be his cockwarmer for a week. Understood?"

'Bad' meant disobeying any of the maids, or not being respectful enough to the fine ladies. But it especially meant trying to leave the manse when he was not permitted to. To keep this from happening, Mistress employed a fourth and final inhuman: Mr. Shamrock.

Mr. Shamrock was even larger than Lookoo. Larger than Jem or the Earl. He had peeling, slightly papery grey skin all over his body, and the faint scent of something that had been cooking too long. Aside from that he seemed human, but something about him frightened Anka. Visible even through his very human suit was his large inhuman cock. It appeared to be inexplicably mobile.

If Anka wandered too close to any of the exits, Mr. Shamrock would be there instantly. He would grab Anka and bend him over like Anka was no more than a doll, knocking the wind out of him. Then that cock would rut once, twice against Anka's bottom. It didn't move like a normal cock. It writhed, as if instead it were a mass of insects. Anka had never even seen it and yet he was terrified of it.

"Got you," Mr. Shamrock would say, with a papery laugh. "Y'looking for an extra fuck today?" 

When Anka cried and begged, "No, no," Mr. Shamrock would laugh again, wallop his arse so hard Anka saw stars, then hiss, "No leavin', little Switch!" before finally letting Anka go.

-

Anka's only real skill until now had been fucking. But now he learned to carry coal, and to sweep and dust. He learned to be an extra pair of hands serving the fine ladies their enticing suppers, and to set the table for the maids, too, when their turn came to eat their hearty fare. 

He was always given his own small share of this and sent to eat with Lookoo when the humans were done, but before that he had to clean up as the others prepared to go home. He learned to make sure all the plates were cleared and stacked when the women were done, and to wipe down the trestle table in the kitchens. He learned how to make it gleam.

He learned that when Mistress' bell sounded four times in quick succession, that meant he was to abandon whatever he was doing, whether it was sweeping or stacking plates. He was to go up the narrow back stair only he seemed to use, the dingy stair that led straight to the secret panel in Mistress' office.

At first, Mistress called him for nothing at all. To teach him to respond to the bell (if he was too slow, he had to suck off Lookoo, whose corkscrew cock would drill his throat especially painfully). To teach him to strip on command, and to teach him how to tell when Mistress wanted him not to strip but only to quietly kneel by her desk. To get on all fours when Mistress wanted a backside to balance her bowls of cherries on. To show him the rooms where he'd be expected to work -- the salons at the very back of the manse, where the fine ladies never went. The purple salon, the pink salon, the green bathroom, and the great wood-paneled formal gathering room.

Once, she even called him to give him a present.

Mistress handed him a sizable jar of lubricant.

"Do you know how to prepare yourself, or shall I have Shamrock teach you?" she'd said carelessly.

"I know how," Anka said quickly. He did know. He'd been a whore his whole life. He was used to slicking himself up, getting his cunt and arse as greasy as possible so the cocks wouldn't hurt so bad. And he didn't want to spend any more time than necessary with Mr. Shamrock.

"Good," Mistress said. "Then make sure you're prepared at all times."

But after that, it was a good week and still Mistress didn't have him fuck any gentlemen. The jar went on his shelf next to his spare smock, his cake of soap, and his stubby bedside candle. Anka quite forgot about it the day a stout, cheerful lord came to the school.

His name was Lord Worthington. Anka was scrubbing floors in the conservatory, under the watchful eye of a maid who was teaching him how to really put his elbows into it, when Lord Worthington arrived. At first, Anka paid no mind at all to the laughter coming from the music room.

Another maid wandered in.

"Dreadful, how poor Miss Darracott is so silly as to agree to marry that wastrel."

"Oh, I dunno, Elsie," said the first maid. "With her hatchet face? She's lucky she's got heaps of money to lure him in. He's a lord, you know. _Her_ father's in trade."

"Lord or no, he's no good, Mae. Anyone who pinches backsides the way he does won't make much of a husband. And I couldn't bear to be married only for my money, me."

"'Course not, Elsie. You haven't got any money. Oi, Switch, don't miss that spot over by the fern!"

Anka obediently applied himself to the spot by the fern. But then the bell sounded. Four quick times.

Elsie looked at Anka with something like pity.

"Poor little thing. She wants to sermonize at you again?"

This seemed to be what all the maids assumed Mistress wanted him for.

"I'd hate to be one of her projects," Elsie said, with a sad shake of her head, as Anka rose to go meet Mistress. As he left, he could hear Mae say, "Come on, Elsie. It's good for 'im. Look at that belly. He was probably doing all kinds of improper things before Mistress took him in. Me mum says inhumans are dreadful indecent."

But Anka paid that no mind. He was too busy wondering if now, of all days, would be the day Mistress would finally order him to do dreadful, indecent things. Because it was hitting him -- _he'd forgotten to slick himself up_.

But no. No. It would be fine. As he went up the narrow back stairs, he told himself that Mistress probably just wanted to check that all his bruises had healed. She had been keeping an eye on those. She said he would be better once he was spotless and pretty. She said the fine gentlemen liked to pretend they were the first to mark whores up, and that Anka should never try to disavow them of that notion. 

Mistress was sitting on her chaise longue, thumbing through a book and eating great handfuls of grapes instead of cherries today. Anka sank to his knees before her obediently.

"Oh, get up," she said carelessly. "I want you in the Purple Salon. Go on, go. No time to waste."

Despite this, Anka had the panicked thought that perhaps he could sneak down to his room and slick himself. But Mr. Shamrock was materializing out of the shadows, like he could read Anka's mind.

"No makin' the young lord wait now," he said, with a grin. He took hold of Anka's skinny arm and guided him to the door.

"You should know that Worthington's a gambler," Mistress murmured, as they left. It was like she was remarking on the weather. "Oh, and do arrange yourself prettily. On all fours scissoring your cunt open or something. The poor man's had to spend all morning wooing Venetia Darracott, so he'll pay better if he gets something nice to look at for once."

-

Anka did try to scissor himself. Tried to rub himself, too. In fact he stripped himself totally and got on the big purple featherbed, and tried to do with his own hands all the special rubbing and probing his Master had been so good at. He tried to stretch his little arse, too, just in case.

If only he had his jar of grease. But that was down in the cellar, sitting uselessly on his shelf, and he was here in the Purple Salon, with its purple glass skylight, its purple bed, its vast purple-tiled fireplace, and a great purple-painted chest full of -- 

Full of things he dearly hoped Lord Worthington would not want to use today.

Lord Worthington was whistling when he opened the door, as if he were in a grand mood. He was a short and stocky man of about eight-and-twenty, with gingery whiskers and thinning blondish hair on his head. His eyebrows were pale caterpillars above pale eyes that widened when they saw Anka, sitting there naked with a finger in his cunny and tears already starting to prick at his eyes.

"By Jove! What a sight! I half thought Venetia was having me on in her letters, but it _is_ a Switch!"

And, without preamble, he dropped his trousers to reveal a fat, stubby cock already straining to get a good fuck in. 

He proved to be an energetic and exploratory man. He prodded at Anka's pointed ears, his green toes, his little green-tipped nipples. He slapped his cock cheerfully on Anka's stomach a few times, saying things like, "Never had a Switch before, by Jove! This will be something to tell the club!" and "What's this whatsit here, in the cage? By Jove, if that isn't the sorriest little cock I've ever seen!"

And then he got to Anka's holes.

"Dry as dust!" he exclaimed, probing Anka's cunt from behind. Anka had his face in the pillows by now, hips thrust up at his lordship. This position hid both Anka's grimace of pain and his dismay. 

"Well, how am I ever to fuck into this? Can't even so much as get m'damned finger in this cunt--"

He truly couldn't. He had fat, stubby fingers, and just one was enough to make Anka whimper.

"I'm sorry, my lord," he tried, between hard breaths into the pillows. "I--I ought to have slicked myself, but you see I was scrubbing floors--"

"Dash it, you're telling me you thought about floors instead of m'cock? What a stupid little thing y'are!"

"I'll be better," Anka promised desperately. He only hoped Lord Worthington wouldn't report his dismal failure to Mistress. He bore it when Lord Worthington's finger twisted and scraped his sensitive wall, biting his lip to keep from crying out.

"Ought to spank you! Some whore y'are!"

"An awful one, sir. Just please, please don't tell Mistress Rivenhall--"

She might make him suck off Lookoo. She might send him out to warm Stan's frigid, horrible prick again. Or, worst yet -- she might tell Summerstoke. She might tell the Earl how stupid Anka was, to forget the very lesson his Master had impressed upon him.

Now Lord Worthington pulled back a bit, and Anka couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. He could feel his sore little cunny clamming up again as if to protect itself, with only the barest protest of pain. There was a moment's silence. Anka dared to look over his shoulder at the man above him. Lord Worthington was regarding him thoughtfully, his caterpillar brows bristling.

"By Jove, 'm not a beast," he said, just a bit too easily for Anka to truly feel safe. "I'll give you a chance t'make it up! A little wager! If you can survive ten good smacks and not move out of position, y'win! I won't say a word! What d'you say?"

One meaty hand massaged Anka's bottom, grabbing at the flesh with rather more force than Lord Worthington's words belied.

"Y-yes, my Lord. Please. Let's do that."

"Good! It's a deal, by Jove!" 

Then Lord Worthington was off and rummaging through the purple-painted chest. Anka swallowed hard at the array of wooden and ivory cocks Worthington unearthed, the cruel metal clamps and the cold strings of beads for his arse (each item producing yet another excited, "By Jove!" and once a "By Jove! Forgot about this one! Think I used it on the Peskie that was here b'fore!")

Lord Worthington came back with a flat paddle.

"Not what I had in mind!" he reported. "But it'll do! But get off the bed, now. Can't have y'sleeping! Need to keep y'alert for this!"

Anka obeyed, getting off the bed and stumbling to where Lord Worthington directed him, to a spot across the room where there was a small side table with four strong lengths of rope on it, next to four metal rings set into the walls. Lord Worthington made Anka face the wall and cheerfully bound Anka's hands to the top rings. Those were high up enough that Anka's arms were stretched far above him, and almost immediately began to hurt.

"Won't bind your legs if y'can keep 'em spread! Understood? Keep 'em spread and y'win!"

Anka nodded vigorously, and spread his legs. This was difficult, and meant he was on his tip toes. 

And now he understood the wager. He understood it with dreadful clarity. 

The first hit was to one of his arse cheeks. Lord Worthington didn't hold back, and the paddle produced such a jolt of pain that Anka gave a shriek. But he didn't move, trying desperately to balance. 

"Good! One! Count 'em, by Jove!"

"One," Anka managed, hating how pitiable his voice sounded.

The second hit fell on the other cheek. It jerked him about a bit, but he still managed to keep his legs spread, though the pain bloomed across in his backside and made him cry out. 

"T-two."

Three, four, and five came a little harder. His arse was on fire by now, and getting the count out was especially difficult. Lord Worthington was chuckling outright as he got into it, and Anka's little cries made him laugh harder.

Six was not a smack with the flat of the paddle, as the others had been. Six was Lord Worthington viciously taking one of the remaining lengths of rope, winding it about his fist, and letting it fly like a whip down the sensitive skin of Anka's crack. His aim was perfect. Anka almost lost balance with the shock and hurt of it. 

"S-six!" he shrieked. 

The next hit repeated six, but seemed aimed at his pained little arsehole. Anka jerked and nearly fell. Now he was gasping for breath by the time he sobbed out, "Seven!"

Eight was the same, but even harder. Anka's count was little more than a wail, the number itself barely discernible. Lord Worthington's chuckles were almost mad now. He paused only long enough to untie one of Anka's hands, and Anka's sob of pain became a sob of gratitude. He could get a foot flat on the floor now, and so it was easier to maintain his position.

"Got t'keep it fair, by Jove!" said Lord Worthington, and then picked up the paddle and reamed Anka's sore arsecheeks again.

"N-nine!" Anka cried. It was almost over. It was almost done. He tried to breathe through his sobs. Lord Worthington put a hand on his shaking hip, and it was almost a comfort.

Then the hand slid down and propped up Anka's thigh, creating a space for Lord Worthington. Anka could barely react, he was so upset at the unfairness of this, at how he had to fight to keep his foot on the ground even harder. But before he could protest, quick as lightning, Lord Worthington's other hand came up with the paddle, angling it to hit Anka's cunt from the back. 

Anka's nub erupted into agony. With a scream he jerked out of position, trying to bring his legs in. Trying to escape the pain.

"By Jove!" Lord Worthington said happily. "I win!"

-

Lord Worthington did eventually force his way into Anka's holes. Both of them. This was the next wager.

"Say it with me, by Jove! 'His lordship's a fine fellow!'" Lord Worthington said. He had Anka's free hand bent across his back, and was ploughing his arse, then his cunt. Then his arse. 

This wasn't easy, but there was some blood, by now, to ease the way. And his lordship had added a bit of spit, just enough to make the act of double-fucking Anka pleasurable for him if not for Anka. 

"'H-his lordship's a f-fine fellow," Anka sobbed.

"'Will do anythin' for a wager!'"

"'Will do-do -- argh! Anythin'-- f-for--"

In his battered arse. In his pained cunt. Each time pulling out and then thrusting in to the other hole, as far as that awful cock could go.

"'Even if it's rough!'"

"E-evn if--if--"

Anka could only finish in pained moans. There was nothing good about this fuck, this agonizing game. He kept being forced open again and again. His holes throbbed so badly he wished he were dead.

Lord Worthington undid his other hand and let him drop to the floor, then straddled the slouched boy from behind and resumed. His fat cock went back to its little jest, prying Anka's arsehole, then his cunt. The assault robbed Anka of any hope. He was nothing but two holes that traded off in pain, that existed to suffer at the whims of Lord Worthington's pole. 

"'Which one will it be? Will he come in m'arse? Or m'cunt?' No, dash it! Don't say that! Just pick one! That's the next wager!"

Anka knew he wouldn't win whichever he picked.

"C-cunt!" he tried, because then perhaps Lord Worthington would finish in his arse, and his sore little cunny would have one less thrust. But it didn't really matter. Just let him finish. Anka would take his punishment from Mistress if only this would finish.

"By Jove! What a guess!" Lord Worthington crowed, and pulled out completely again. He flipped Anka over, letting the boy's abused backside hit the floor, and came all over his belly and tits.

"Wrong! I win again!"

-

Before he left, the pleased Lord Worthington recommended Mistress keep a proper willow switch on hand.

"A switch for a Switch, by Jove!"

"Yes," Mistress Rivenhall said coolly, counting out her takings while Anka sobbed into the carpet of her office. "Lovely idea. Next time you have... your urges, Anka here will be waiting with a willow switch."

"'M a genius, m'dear!"

"Mmmhmm," said Mistress Rivenhall. "Venetia really has no idea how lucky she is, Lord Worthington."

-

For his dismal performance with Lord Worthington, Anka was sent to warm Stan's cock for a week. He was fucked in the cold air, shivering and miserable; and slept each night in the pigpen with his mouth around Stan's dirty pole.

At least Mistress let him bring his jar of lubricant along. That way he learned to be grateful for it. Each time Stan's filthy prick surprised him, at least he was properly greased. 


	5. Very Fine Gentlemen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anka gets to know some of his clients.

Lord Rosebery was a tall, thin man, with a long face and long legs, and a cock that was as long as the rest of him. 

When he slid inside Anka, the length always made Anka moan a bit. Every inch was too much. Particularly since Lord Rosebery liked to take him standing up, bound much like Lord Worthington had bound him, only with his back to the wall. For those initial thrusts, the rough panels of the Purple Salon would chafe against Anka's back, even as his now-properly greased cunt would more easily accept his lordship's intrusions.

Then, like Lord Worthington, Lord Rosebery would undo Anka's bound hands. Anka would drop right onto his cock. 

Even though it hurt, Anka's toes would curl and he'd feel so suddenly stretched he'd be close to coming. But then Lord Rosebery would drop him onto the side table. There he would fuck like a piston, pounding Anka a bit too fast to ever do more than cause pain.

But it wasn't about Anka's satisfaction.

"You-- like -- my -- cock?" his Lordship would pant.

"Y-yes, my lord," Anka knew to say. Though each time he could barely make himself fuck back, because his Lordship's cock was too long, too fast, too much. Anka was overwhelmed, battered. If he could get past the pain perhaps he would beg his Lordship to please pry into him a little sweeter. A little slower. Give Anka time to _think_ , instead of just to jerk about like a rag doll. But he couldn't get past the jackhammer thrusts that left him dazed and hurting. 

In and out and in and out. Making Anka nothing more than a cunt in agony. And then, behind the blur of pain, that long teasing fullness that never really took. Anka would hiccup and wriggle his hips despite himself. Oh --oh if only if were slower, if he could feel the cock a little better. If he could have its weight in him and really feel it. 

The cock that was torturing him.

Anka would want both less and more, and wouldn't know if he was squealing and squirming because he liked it, or because he wanted it to stop. Anka's cries of praise for his Lordship's fucking eventually became automatic. He couldn't say he enjoyed Lord Rosebery, exactly, but his Lordship certainly did know how to fuck Anka stupid.

-

Some of the fine gentlemen didn't call Anka to the Purple Salon, with its pretensions at being a bedchamber. Some gentlemen preferred him in the Pink Salon, which was rather more like a parlor. 

Mr. Franklin Gladstone and Lord Benjamin Brocket were two such men, men with a decided curiosity for how to make use of a Switch, but less of an interest in fucking him.

No, they merely wanted to be waited on while they took a long, slow meal and discussed politics.

"His Majesty will be improved by this marriage to the Countess of Salford, dear Franklin, mark my words. He's been far too much an innocent for too long, and having a sensible wife can do wonders for a man."

"I disagree, my dear Benjamin. It is one thing to have a sensible wife, and another to marry a virago whose sharp tongue spreads rumors about her own husband."

"How can you say that? She is charming, dear Franklin."

"No, no, my dear Benjamin. She is thirty-five and tedious. Oh, Switch? Another drink, if you please. And one of those little cakes."

That would be Anka's cue to come forward from the pink-draped shadows, silent, for Mr. Gladstone and Lord Brocket preferred silence. Never mind that silence was difficult when he was crawling with a tray of cakes on his back, and another tray of utensils swinging from his neck. 

Mr. Gladstone and Lord Brocket would select their preferred treat, and the proper item to eat it with. Dirty dishes would go on the tray on Anka's back, making it heavier. The handles of dirty spoons, knives, or forks would be summarily shoved into Anka's arse, and woe betide him if he didn't keep them clamped in there. If they wished for cream for their coffee, they would uncork the little bottle peeking out of Anka's cunt and help themselves.

The first time with Mr. Gladstone and Lord Brocket, Anka hadn't at all believed he'd be able to take a whole bottle. But they had proven to him that he could, by starting with a metal coffee stirrer and working their way up. 

They were patient men. Over drinks and cakes, they'd stretched his hole item by item. They'd massaged him with more cold lube than he did even himself, then fucked the hard cold of the stirrer, the utensils, even part of a rolling pin into him with exacting patience. He'd learned not to make noises or fuck back when they scraped him just right inside, because from him they wanted silence and obedient stillness. They wanted a Switch they could ignore if they chose, but one whose holes were put to efficient use nevertheless. 

Smaller bottles gave way to slightly bigger ones. The cold glass wasn't ever pleasant inside him, but the almost lazy precision of forcing him open was something he could nearly appreciate. Nearly. It always hurt. 

Anka learned to cry quietly. 

-

Occasionally, new young ladies, eager potential pupils, would tour Miss Rivenhall's Academy for Young Ladies.

So would their uncles, guardians, brothers, and papas. For these men, Mistress maintained a modern lavatory, a private room away from the more feminine spaces of the manse. It was wallpapered in a dark, manly paisley, and all of the fittings were a modern, masculine silver.

There was also a hole next to the urinal, at about a height with the thing. Above it was hung a little sign which said: _For discreet relief_.

Anka was in charge of the room, in charge of keeping it spotless and gleaming, in charge of scrubbing it until even the urinal shone. He was also in charge of the space in the wall, just behind the hole. 

Merely _potential_ clients couldn't know that it was Mistress' charity project providing them with their discreet relief, though they might guess at it.

Anka always knew when new families were touring, because Mistress would summon him to the space behind the wall. There, he would wait on his knees. Sometimes it would just be one cock poking through, after the man on the other side found the sign and hole and puzzled a bit. He'd wonder: "Dash it -- it can't _really_ mean-- But. Well. It's worth a shot."

And Anka's mouth would close on his cock. And Anka would suck. 

Hot and wet, like Mistress demanded him to. Anka was now an advertisement, and that meant he could be nothing less than perfect at this. He was to dutifully lap up all the precum, to get his mouth quivering on the shaft no matter how big it was. These men couldn't see him, so there was no need to try and be pretty about it, to try and lick it dainty-like. He was to be a warm, waiting hole for them, taking them as deep as he could. Tasting every inch of salt and sweat. Asking for their cum with his quivering, hot little mouth.

If they said he was to go fast, then he was to bob on it. Punishing his own throat. 

If they were too long or too thick, then he was to find a way to get them in anyway. Mistress wanted him kissing the wall, taking whatever they fed past it. The same service as if no wall separated them, because then he'd be expected to get down to the balls and choke if he had to. 

It went without saying that he was to swallow, and leave them as clean or cleaner than he found them. 

Sometimes, fine ladies with very large families would visit. Anka would have to take a succession of cocks. By the end his throat would hurt something awful and he'd be sore just breathing. He'd find he could barely talk without sounding hoarse.

For all that, though, he almost liked working the hole in the wall. Jammed there in the tiny space with a hot cock in his throat, he could sneak a hand down into his smock and play with his cunny. Because he could always try to imagine that the cock in front of him, heavy and warm in his throat, overpowering him with its filthy taste, was his Master.

Each time a fine lord came and it wasn't his Master, he would lose a little of his hope that the Earl would ever return for him. But inside the wall he could pretend. Could pretend that when he reached the end, and the man on the other side was groaning and coming in his mouth, he'd hear that decided, deep voice he longed for. He'd be with his Master again without knowing it.

Sometimes they pissed, after coming. He hadn't really liked that when his Master had done it. It was so dirty and humiliating, like the Earl knew Anka was nothing but a whore and was reminding him of his place. But it had been a little exciting, to get pissed on like he was something his Master was claiming. Like he was owned, properly, by the Earl. Now the piss would fill up his throat and he'd swallow it, and for a single instant, despite the awful taste and smell, he would think--

But then the man on the other side would sigh in a way that was too unfamiliar, or laugh with a voice just a bit too high. It was never his Master, and Anka would be left to sit there miserable and lonely, throat aching, until the next cock pushed its way through the hole in the wall.

-

Sir Chester Hesterfold was the oldest old man Anka had ever seen. He was little and spry and entirely bald. He had dim blue eyes and a series of stunning salmon-colored waistcoats that always had candies in the pockets. Those were mostly to give to his granddaughter.

And sometimes to give to Anka. 

Sir Chester preferred the Pink Salon. He didn't want Anka on a bed. He wanted Anka naked and crawling again, with little silken ears on his head and a heavy ivory prick in his backside. The prick was attached to a lifelike tail that brushed Anka's bottom as he crawled about.

"It's my Spot!" Sir Chester would cry, as he came in. "Here, boy! Here!"

Anka learned to lope across the room and give little barks, to lick Sir Chester's shoes convincingly. Sir Chester would often set him to playing fetch, and would give light smacks to Anka's bottom each time Anka picked up the carved wooden pricks he tossed out and returned with them in his mouth.

"There's a good boy, Spot! How lovely to have my Spot again after so many years!"

Sometimes Sir Chester would feed Anka from his hand, which wasn't too bad, and was indeed a nicer way of eating than many Anka had ever known before. Sometimes he would take Anka for walks around the great paneled gathering room, as well, making Anka lift his leg to piss in the corners. 

Anka did not like this so much, as he would later have to clean the mess himself. 

Some days Sir Chester permitted him to come up on the furniture, invite him to lie on a pretty pink satin cover placed on the upholstery. He would let Anka curl up next to him while he petted Anka's hair. Anka liked being petted despite himself. It was a kind touch, and those were so rare Anka had learned to appreciate any he might receive. But this was a double-edged kindness. Sir Chester almost never permitted Anka on the furniture until that heavy ivory prick had sat in Anka's guts for a full hour at least. By then that back tunnel would be used to the intrusion. Any ache would, by then, have given way to a familiar fullness that would make Anka pant a bit, like he really was a dog. His little cocklet would start perking up in its cage. Though it couldn't reach full hardness, not until the Earl should return, it would still drool a bit at the tip.

"Oooh, naughty Spot!" Sir Chester would cry, smacking Anka's bottom hard enough to make him yip. "Good thing I put your blankie here, or you would have ruined the settee. Dirty Spot!"

But he clearly liked seeing Anka half-hard, because then he would be eagerly undoing his trousers. His pecker was a wizened worm of a thing, for a man's, though reasonably big compared to Anka's. He liked Anka to lick and lick and lick at it like a real dog. To get the little grizzled balls as well. Anka learned to please it almost mindlessly, like he really was mistaking the ugly, sour-tasting thing for a treat.

"Oh, it's Spot's favorite game!" Sir Chester would say. "You like it, don't you, Spot? Spot wants his milkie, doesn't he?"

Anka learned to bark his agreement. Sometimes Sir Chester would force a finger or two into his cunt while he did this, or stuff one of the wooden pricks in, as a reward for being a good dog. Or he would slide in one of his candies, a sticky little ball of lemon or strawberry that would sit in Anka, worming at his sensitive hole, for the next few hours. Until Anka could force it out at the end of the day in the coal cellar, and eat it while a laughing Lookoo watched him grimace at the stickiness in his cunny. But more often Sir Chester forgot to reward Anka with anything but his thin, watery cum.

"Drink up, my Spot!" he would cry, and Anka would obediently lap it up, letting his tongue loll out to show Sir Chester how it gathered in his mouth. The sour, unwashed taste would be with Anka for the rest of the day, and often not even the sweet candies could really rid him of it.

\- 

By the time Anka had been at Miss Rivenhall's for two months, he had been fucked by more fine gentlemen than he had ever imagined existed. Lord Augustus Baxter, who enjoyed tying him into increasingly uncomfortable positions. Lord Henry De Clare, whose chief pleasure was the feel of Anka's little tongue washing out his anal ring for him. Mr. Archibald Loftus-Wedgwood, who spat obscenities at Anka and made Anka cry with words alone, while Anka took his heavy prick in his cunt for what was otherwise an almost-pleasant fuck. 

Anka knew better than to ever let Mistress know if he did not like any of these experiences. It wasn't merely the threat of sucking off Lookoo, or rutting with Stan, that kept him quiet and obedient. It was also the fact that he knew Mistress wrote the Earl about him sometimes, and he did not want Summerstoke to think him stupid or ungrateful. Anka was grateful, when he remembered to be. All of this was better than the Gin Tangle. All of this was better than the workhouse, and it was a great deal better than being fucked half-dead by the head constable. Here he had warm clothes and food, and a real bed in a warm cellar.

And if Anka ever looked too unhappy to hear of a return visit from one of his suitors, as Mistress sometimes jeeringly called them, well.

Then Mistress could bend him over herself. She was so cold, Mistress. Her own inhuman tentacle-pricks (two of them, one fewer than a proper Eelie's) could always force their way into Anka's guts. The freeze would make Anka scream and scream, as his limbs went blue with cold and his brain was wiped into little more than icy pain. Mistress would always use her Eelie-tricks to damper the sound, too, so he was screaming to no purpose. 

No one could hear him.

"That's much worse than Lord Baxter, isn't it, Anka?" Mistress would say, when she thought Anka had had enough (sometimes it was minutes, sometimes an hour). "So you'll put on a pretty smile for him, won't you? Instead of that sour face."

It would take Anka a few minutes to come back to himself, but eventually, despite the frozen tear tracks on his face, he would force himself to give Mistress a hiccuping, misery-tinged smile.

He learned to be especially grateful when Mistress was pleased with him. He learned to be glad that he was more than earning his keep. Anka had no sense of money or profits, as indeed for most of his life to have twenty pence was a rare and unheard-of fortune. But he knew that the fine gentlemen paid Mistress -- and by extension the Earl -- extremely well for the filthy pleasures they forced him into. Indeed, the rougher they were, the more it seemed they paid. Anka never saw a penny of it, but when Mistress called him in one day to praise him for how hard he worked and how much he earned, he made sure to smile dutifully for her.

"We should reward you for your pretty little holes, Anka," she told him. "They're far more popular than even I predicted, if I'm being honest."

"Y-yes, Mistress," Anka said. "Thank you, Mistress."

Then Mistress ordered him to lift up his smock and lie on a table by the fire. This was not so bad, but Mr. Shamrock loomed next to the table, and his presence made Anka nervous.

"I'm sure Summerstoke will like this, too," Mistress said. "He can't be mad if we're simply commemorating your hard work, can he?"

"N-no, Mistress," Anka said, because it was easiest to agree even if Mistress was making him uneasy. She waved a hand at Mr. Shamrock, and he bent his great form and put something to the fire for a few moments. When he straightened, Anka could see that it was a burning-hot needle.

"His little tits, and his cunt," Mistress decided. "We'll put bells on them when the gentlemen come to see him."

Not all of the gentlemen were partial to the bells. Lord Worthington liked to clip heavy weights onto the piercings instead, and make Anka guess how many ounces were tormenting his sensitive flesh. 


	6. Exceeding Expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anka's master pays a visit.

It took Summerstoke, regrettably, three months to return to his dryad. Three months more than he wanted or expected.

The delay was not for his own sake. It was really for Geraldine's, or perhaps for Jem's and Urk's. The Duke of Allerton was still interested in the potential connection between Geraldine and Summerstoke's inhuman servants, and Allerton's attention was always dangerous. 

Even more so now that Allerton had succeeded in making his sister the Queen.

Summerstoke found himself accosted in his club. Or while strolling about in the park. He'd spent a good few years in the Capitol and never once been bothered by Allerton at all, and now it seemed he could not be rid of the man. Should he so much as take a drink with Freddie at the Hotel Beauchamp, he would find Allerton's decided allies descending on the table. It was all very proper on the surface, but their questions would always be a bit too prying, and the matter of his sister -- an uninteresting country maid known for little more than her charity and perhaps her exotic coloring -- would invariably come up.

"She must so enjoy being out there in the fresh air, all surrounded by family," surmised the Viscount Pease. "Oh -- no, forgive me. I forgot that you are both orphans. But she has that Wrollf your family has always employed. Urk, is he? He must be something like family to her."

No, clearly Allerton had not forgotten, or forgiven. Geraldine herself was loath to come back to the city as a result, and Summerstoke almost wanted to send Jem away as well. 

But that would have been like admitting defeat.

At the royal wedding of the King and the Countess of Salford, Allerton had come up to Summerstoke just outside the cathedral. Just for a moment. He'd doffed his fine white top hat to Summerstoke. Summerstoke had responded in kind. To onlookers, this would have seemed no more than two gentlemen greeting each other. Even Summerstoke was somewhat thrown for a moment, unable to conceive of any threat.

Allerton was a great deal younger than he'd realized. Summerstoke was three years shy of thirty, and had always assumed the Duke might be of an age with him. Allerton certainly ran with a crowd that was older. But the Duke had the smooth, perfectly hairless chin of a youth that hardly needed to shave. He could easily be no more than twenty, might be astonishingly young for all the power he held. It was hard to tell. Like almost all of those related to the royal family, he was fair-haired and delicate in his features. As fair-haired and ageless-seeming as his elder sister, the both of them appearing like bizarrely cruel statuettes made of porcelain.

"Summerstoke," he'd said, in a cultured voice a bit higher than Summerstoke was expecting. His dark eyes narrowed as he spoke. "How grand of you to come celebrate with us. I thought I spied your valet lurking about in the shadows -- he _is_ distinctive. Or no. Perhaps that was your sister I saw. So hard to tell. All you country families. You start to look a bit like the servants, and the servants like you."

Summerstoke had nearly lunged at the man. He could have torn the slender form apart easily, especially in his Wrollf form.

But he could not react like a Wrollf. He had to be a gentleman. And a true gentleman would not be spotted visiting Miss Rivenhall's Academy for Young Ladies without having a damn better reason than wanting to see a low-born Switch whore he'd rescued from the streets.

Luckily, Summerstoke had been percolating a plan to remedy that. On his mother's side he had a distant cousin, a young Euphemia Swansea, who Summerstoke was very fond of. The girl was pretty and artless and countrified, but clever, in her way. And nearly of an age to finally be educated. 

It regrettably took three months of cajoling to make her doting, rather simple parents agree to have her sponsored by him at Celeste's academy. But eventually he managed it. Summerstoke was nothing if not dedicated when he had to be. And Euphemia herself assisted, as she was very desperate to finally see something more than her father's country house. She was laughing and delightful when she arrived at Summerstoke's townhouse, and Summerstoke even let her convince him to ride up to the manse on the pair of white ponies he'd brought her to celebrate her new schooling.

"Oh, they're perfectly stunning, cousin Robert," she'd declared. "I _adore_ them. I'm quite sure no one at Miss Rivenhall's will own anything nearly so pretty!"

Summerstoke thought of his Anka, with his large black eyes, green-tipped nails, and tight, hairless little cunt.

"You would be surprised, my dear," he murmured. "At just how lovely are some of the things waiting for us at Miss Rivenhall's."

-

He didn't like Celeste's Purple or Pink Salons, as he was not the sort of man to want to fuck in any place that so plainly screamed 'brothel.' So he called for Anka to be waiting in the Green Bathroom, and for a separate guest room to be made up for them. It would perhaps put Celeste to a bit of trouble, but then she owed it to him by now. Her letters made clear that Anka had proved to be a wonderful investment, and indeed the stream of money Summerstoke's solicitors were quietly receiving from the school (without comment -- they were _very_ well paid) put the truth to her words. 

Anka was a terrific success with the peerage.

Summerstoke felt perhaps a bit bad to be reaping such a profit from the boy. But he had a little sum set aside for Anka out of it. It was just enough to eventually outfit the dryad in his own apartments, apartments no one but Summerstoke would have a key to, when the danger of Allerton was through. This, Summerstoke reasoned, would repay the boy for the work he was forced to engage in now.

And it would be a delight, then, to find ways to make Anka thank him for advancing him from street whore, to noble whore, to -- finally -- the worshipful personal fuckpet of a gentleman.

Celeste was already putting in the time to bring Anka ever-closer to that ideal. This was clear when, after Euphemia had been toured and embraced and released to a gaggle of admiring fellow young ladies, Summerstoke let himself into the Green Bathroom.

He wanted Anka to associate him with as much kindness as cruelty. So he'd ordered a hot bath drawn for the creature, hot and humid. Anka was to wash himself, enjoying the pleasant warmth of the water on his ever-too-cold dryad form. Then he was to towel himself off and obediently kneel until Summerstoke was ready for him.

But the pretty thing wasn't kneeling. He was moving about, accompanied by, of all things, the pleasant tinkling of bells. He was entirely preoccupied doing something to his cunt when Summerstoke walked in.

"Anka," Summerstoke said sharply, as this was not at all the welcome he expected or wanted. He was already resolving to punish the dryad, quite put out to have his plans for their reunion already so ruined.

Anka turned to face him. Summerstoke noted briefly that Celeste had been fatteninng him up enough to give his skinny backside some pleasant heft, before he saw what Anka had been doing.

The little Switch's outer cunt lips had been pierced. Three rings in each lip. Between them, Anka had braided a lovely ribbon in the exact green of his nails and nipples, braided and tied into a bow like a little present. He pushed himself against the tub and angled his hips so Summerstoke could see it better.

"D'you like it, Master?" he asked breathlessly.

Did he _ever_.

Summerstoke strode though the steamy mist of the bathroom, eager to palm that lovely cunt. Anka let him, rocking into his hands very agreeably. Some men might see this piercing as a ruination, but Summerstoke understood it for the mark it was. It announced Anka as a whore, a tool for pleasure. But a fine one. Not a creature from the streets anymore, no, but instead a vision of the sort only the most powerful were permitted to despoil. Summerstoke felt his blood go hot as he kneaded the flesh, the little present Anka had made for him.

And it wasn't the only gift. Anka was terribly pretty now that he'd been fed a bit, with more of that healthy dryad green flushing him in places. His dark hair was wet, but already silkier than before, and his little tits had grown until they were comfortable handfuls. They were topped with dollar-sized nipples, now emerald in color, which were also pierced. The bells in the piercings jingled sweetly when Summerstoke massaged them. Anka seemed to enjoy that. He gasped a bit, like his nips had been thoroughly abused over the past few months and were now sensitive, and Summerstoke filed that information away for further use.

Anka's belly, too, had grown. He had to be about five months along now. His gravid swell made the rest of him seem wonderfully profane. Celeste was never fool enough to put in writing what Anka did to earn his keep -- it would destroy her, Summerstoke, and half the peerage if she did -- but sometimes she alluded. Her coded language suggested all sorts of perversions that now played in Summerstoke's mind: Anka being plowed from behind while this belly swung below him; Anka with spend all over the swollen evidence of his whorishness. Summerstoke firmed up a bit in his trousers, enough to give an unwitting groan.

When he got Anka all to himself, he knew he'd want to breed the dryad up promptly with his own seed. Get a nice big clutch in him, and then perhaps have Anka put on a few more shows with Jem and Freddie. Because, clearly, Summerstoke had missed the perfect vision that Anka must make when he was being fucked like this.

"Should have pierced your ears and navel as well," he muttered into Anka's throat. He found himself drawing in the healthy green scent there, the lovely smell of dryad that he was so terribly fond of. His hand tugged on Anka's ribbon, tugging the cunt lips with it. Anka whined.

"Yes, Master," he agreed.

Summerstoke would put a clutch in his belly and the wolf-crest of his house on his ears and tits and navel, little charms to go right next to the bells. Then Anka would really be a pretty present. 

"On your knees," Summerstoke ordered him now, stepping back to give Anka room. Anka obeyed without hesitation. He looked up at Summerstoke.

"M'lord Master," he said, though Summerstoke had not told him to speak. "I--I'm so _glad_. Thought you had forgotten about me, Master, and I--"

Summerstoke put a hand on his mouth, quelling the words. Clearly Anka would need some further training, in learning when a man wanted to hear him and when a man had better uses for his mouth. But a part of him was pleased by the desperate admonition the boy had just made.

"You missed me?" Summerstoke said.

Anka nodded beneath his hand.

"Show me," said Summerstoke.

He grabbed Anka's hair firmly, just enough to hurt a bit, and pushed his head down to the toe of his riding boot.

Anka understood. Arranging himself so he was prostrate on the floor, he opened up his mouth and began to lick the fine but dirtied leather. His tongue was all green now, vivid against the black of the boots. Though this act was demeaning, Anka didn't shy away from it any more than he'd shied away from sucking off Jem all those months ago. He clutched the boot in his slender hands and gave it his whole attention. As he wriggled about, getting all the dirty spots, his bells jingled.

Summerstoke was fully hard in about twenty seconds. The sight of Anka crawling about his boot in the steamy mists, with that bow of green peeking out from his cunt. The little song of his dangling tits. 

Really, he wanted nothing more than to flip the boy back over, go full Wrollf, and fuck him unconscious. But that wouldn't do until Anka was so in his pocket that the boy would long for it, would beg to be destroyed and mean it. 

Even now there was something half-fearful in his movements, in how his big eyes shot anxious looks up at Summerstoke, that suggested he wasn't there yet. Celeste knew how to dominate him and make him pliable, but she couldn't make Anka want the domination. That was Summerstoke's trick, and, damn him, he'd gone and left Anka for three months, and now they were three months behind in making Anka embrace what it truly meant to be Summerstoke's slave.

Summerstoke would have to put off his own pleasure for a bit. So perhaps he did want the boy to talk, to distract him from the agony.

"That's enough of that boot, Anka," he told him airily now. "Do the next."

"D-did I do it good, Master?" Anka dared, before obeying and switching to the next boot.

How he loved reassurance, the sweet thing. Summerstoke had to grin.

"Splendidly. So well that, if you like, you can hump the clean one while you lick the other."

Anka didn't look entirely convinced he would like it, but he clearly understood that this was what Summerstoke wanted. He crawled onto Summerstoke's clean boot as best he could and began to rub his cunt on it. Though this had to make the metal piercings grind into his flesh, he did not complain. He worked his hips with purpose if not precise enthusiasm, and put his mouth to work lapping at the second boot.

"You're very big now, Anka," Summerstoke tried, because, dammit, it really was hard to keep from coming there and then at the sight of him.

"F-five months, Master," Anka confirmed, between licks. "M-master, may I ask a question?"

"You may," Summerstoke allowed.

"Will you be a Wrollf again, Master? To fuck me, I mean. I should like to be fucked by you when you're a Wrollf, Master."

Oh, this was too much. The little slut wanted to _make_ him come in his pants! As punishment for this wretched teasing, Summerstoke grabbed his head again and really forced it onto the boot, making Anka cry out.

"Yes, you like Wrollves. I imagine that's why you're carrying Wrollf young," Summerstoke told him. "That's very bad of you. Do you know why it's bad?"

"Because it's not yours!" Anka told his boot. He made a miserable sound and pressed a pathetic kiss to the boot. Summerstoke's cock jerked, barely able to contain itself. 

"The Wrollf that fucked me was only some sailor, Master. I was sick then, dunno with what, but that night I needed his cock, Master. But I wish now it was yours instead," Anka said. "You've kissed me, Master. He didn't bother. Just said what I needed was breeding because I was so hot and hungry for cock. Wish I could get that way for you, Master. Dunno why I was like that. Even my cunny was loose--"

Even through the roaring need that consumed him, this brought Summerstoke up short. A part of him focused on what Anka was really telling him.

He'd been whelped while in heat. That was the sickness that came on dryads, according to Covey. Sometimes very young dryads indeed, as young as Anka was. Of course, one could fuck a dryad pregnant even when it was out of heat, but heat made them scream for cock in a way that they never did otherwise. Loosened up their tight little cunts, as well, and got them good and wet. Only, Monrovia was far, far too cold for any real dryad to go into heat here -- all their energy would instead be conserved just trying to survive and mature. Once they matured, they were better off in the cold.

But Anka hadn't worked the way he was supposed to. He had gone into heat despite being trapped in the wrong climate, on the wrong side of the world. Even in his freezing slum, even so young as he was, he'd apparently been good and ready for a breeding, desperate to have a clutch fucked into him.

It had apparently only taken one night of fucking. The boy was not just a dryad, but a remarkably fertile dryad, of the sorts the Royal Exploration Company had once advertised as the most perfect pets in the world.

And Anka had no idea of it, or what it was that had come on him. The boy was completely ignorant of how he worked. 

Summerstoke tore at his trouser fastenings with frantic hands. It was the ignorance, the _innocence_ , that felled him. He stepped back from his willing young slave, cock out and proud, and came all over Anka's newly-cleaned hair, entirely unable to help himself.

-

Anka was permitted another washing, before he was set to finishing the task of cleaning Summerstoke's second boot. Summerstoke pulled him into the comfortable guest bedroom to finish, sitting on the bed and staring at the coffered ceiling while Anka kneeled on the floor and worked.

He didn't want to come again too quickly. He wanted to piece together precisely what Anka was. There were too many tantalizing mysteries about the boy. Why he was the wrong color, most of him. Why he hadn't died of cold as a child. Why he had no clutch, not even a single twin, when anyone who knew anything about dryads knew they were born in groups of at least two. 

Why his body had pushed him into a breeding, instead of trying to keep him alive long enough to bring the _pre-dinkala_ upon him. The latter would have been better, surely. Made Anka less appealing, but stronger, better prepared to survive Monrovia. Only Anka was defective.

Summerstoke found himself grinning up at the ceiling, daring to hope. 

Oh, his little slave was _wonderfully_ defective. 

"Master," came Anka's soft voice again, "may I please hump your boot again? I liked that, I did."

Summerstoke laughed; he couldn't help it.

"Hump away, my darling," he told him, and felt Anka's weight settle on him, felt the working of Anka's hips and the renewed jingling of his tit-bells.

"Tell me about the workhouse, Anka," Summerstoke instructed him.

He heard Anka take in an unhappy breath. But the boy obeyed, talking between licks of the boot.

"The foreman said I was born there, Master. Said I belonged to it. I didn't have no people there, though. Dunno if they died or abandoned me. The foreman said I belonged to him, really. He'd -- he'd fuck me when he liked. Most all the time. Eventually I couldn't take it, Master. I ran away."

"To the Gin Tangle," Summerstoke said. He'd looked into the Capitol workhouse, trying to understand Anka's origins, and he'd found it was right at the backdoor of that slum. A frightened little dryad seeking to escape it wouldn't have to go very far to fall right into the Tangle.

"Y-yes, Master. Was about ten, I was. Didn't have nothin’ to earn my bread with at first. Then a man found me. I was stealin' from his cart to eat, and he didn't like that. Beat me good. Said he would kill me. I was scared, I was, but I remembered the foreman. So I gave the man my cunt, Master."

"And you became a whore," Summerstoke supplied for him.

Another unhappy sound.

"Well, f-first I did it on my own. But Grenfell Jack -- he owned the Tangle in those days, he did, Master -- he didn't like that. He found me workin' on his turf and not knowin' I had to pay him. He didn't just fuck my cunny. Took me in the arse as well. Was the first time I'd ever taken it back there and it hurt somethin' awful, Master. 

"But if I worked for him, Jack would get me a good spot in a good alley, so's I could make more money. So I paid him his cut after that. He was good to me sometimes after, too. Could tell I didn't like the cold so much, so he taught me to suck cock. That way I had something warm in my throat, see. Feels good if it's the right cock."

Damn the little whore. He was making Summerstoke hard again with words alone. 

"The right cock is Wrollf cock, is it?" Summerstoke managed. He began to stroke his pole lazily. Why put off his pleasure _too_ much? Soon enough he'd be buried in Anka. Perhaps he would even give the boy the animal meat he so desired.

Anka moaned like he was thinking the same thing.

"Wrollves are-- you're the _best_ , Master. Warm, you are. So hot. Even when it hurts somethin' awful, at least with a Wrollf I'm not cold, Master. I'll not tell anything it can't fuck me, 'cause fucking's what I'm good for. But--but Wrollves like you are what I like to fuck. If I'm allowed. Dunno if it's because I'm a Switch, but I like the knots, Master. The knots are lovely."

Covey had been the same. Dryads needed heat, needed it so badly that when you had them plugged up and were pumping scorching cum into them for twenty minutes or more, they actually thanked you for it. That was what made the young ones so special, so perfectly suited to keeping and fucking and abusing. They could be trained to like it, to like just about anything, as long as Summerstoke dangled the gift of heat before them.

He would not be knotting Anka. He got too attached to the things he knotted, and he had absolutely no desire for a repeat of Covey. He would not give his heart to something he would inevitably lose. 

But Anka didn't need to know that. The mere thought of Summerstoke's Wrollf knot was already making him work harder, fuck his cunt against Summerstoke's boot with great focus. When he gave a little whine and stilled for a moment, Summerstoke realized that the dryad boy had actually even managed to come like that. Like an animal, wild and perfect, on his master's riding boot.

"I--I'm sorry, I am," Anka breathed out. "Oooh, I've ruined your boot again, I have, Master--"

"And probably your pretty ribbon," Summerstoke remarked, around the grin he could hardly help. 

Anka nodded, crying a little bit in shame. As Summerstoke watched, he pushed himself off the boot, looking charmingly dejected. 

"I'll get the switch, I will, Master," he said, and crawled to the door despite Summerstoke's answering blink of confusion.

The switch?

Oh, Celeste had been very busy with this one. 

It was a proper willow switch, long and swishy, and when Anka crawled back he was carrying it in his mouth like a miserable little dog. Summerstoke had to laugh at the sight, which made Anka flush green with shame.

"Oh, just take my boots off and get up here, you luscious thing," Summerstoke told him, determined not to wait a minute longer to fuck him. "And tell me who's been switching you--I've a mind to knock them flat."

He liked the thought of Anka writhing with pain, keening under the lash until his pretty eyes filled up with tears and he counted out his own agony. But a part of him was thoroughly furious that any man should have gotten to that before him. He would be the only one to know how to do it properly, the only one to make Anka so simultaneously flushed with pain and pleasure that the boy wouldn't know whether he wanted Summerstoke to stop hitting him or not.

"L-lord Worthington, mostly, Master," Anka said, as he unlaced Summerstoke's boots, removed them, and clambered on the bed. "A few others sometimes do, but only to teach me just the way they like things. But Lord Worthington does it because he likes it, Master."

Then he paused, rather than trying to arrange himself, as if he remembered that Summerstoke, too, would want him to learn just the way Summerstoke liked things. He let Summerstoke grab his arm and pivot him until he was lying properly on his back.

Anka was too nice a sight to take from behind. The thought came with some surprise and dismay. Of course, Summerstoke would have to fuck him from the back sometimes. A hard rogering from the rear showed a whore their place in a way fucking from the front often didn't. But if he was being honest, he'd miss seeing Anka's apprehensive, expressive face, his flushed tits, his embarrassingly large harlot's belly. 

"Where did Worthington switch you?" 

He wanted to know because he'd need to work those places especially carefully, in the future. Need to do his utmost to convince Anka that he needed pain as well as pleasure there. 

Anka squirmed, and worked a hand under one spread thigh to point at his arse. Summerstoke could understand that. What had once been thin and meagre was now such lovely, rounded globes, just enough flesh to take hold of and maul with gusto. 

Anka then pointed to his cunt. 

"Oh, I am going to chase Cyril Worthington down in whatever gaming hell he's currently mouldering in and give him such a beating," Summerstoke growled out. "How _dare_ he switch my present?"

But the thought was even hotter than thinking of Anka lashed in the rear. He was painfully hard again. He took hold of one end of the little green bow -- wet through now with the slick of Anka's efforts to fuck his boots -- and pulled. The thing unraveled beautifully, and then he was sliding the green ribbon out of the rings.

This cunt, this lovely cunt, had been waiting for Summerstoke's cock for three months. Its plump outer folds were dewy with wet, and it was a beautiful color, shot through with a decided tint of vivid green. By now, apparently, it had been fucked enough to get sore and flushed with all that pretty dryad’s blood. And though Anka’s cunny clearly wanted desperately to clam up, the rings kept it just the barest bit open, so that the inner lips peeked through. Those folds were already a bit puffy, hiding the slit that Summerstoke intended to pry wide open with his prick. 

Summerstoke dearly hoped, for Anka's sake, that the boy had remembered to prepare himself. Because he had waited long enough -- he wasn't going to waste time fucking Anka with tongue or fingers today, or indeed with anything other than his cock. If it hurt, well. Then Anka would simply have to take the hurt.

Anka had not been exactly the vision Summerstoke had wanted him to be. He had not kneeled when supposed to, he crawled when not bid to, and he spoke rather too much, if Summerstoke was being honest. No, he hadn't met expectations.

He'd somehow still exceeded them.

"Now it's time for my present for you," Summerstoke decided, and reached inside himself. To the howling, bloodlust place. That corner of his mind that was always growling, always hungry. He felt his form shudder, and saw Anka's breaths catch in his slender throat as the boy beheld the transformation.

Summerstoke was only half-man. The other half now came out to play: the sensitive eyesight, the snarl of hair across his chest and thighs and arms. 

The cock. In this form, it was of a size with Jem's. It looked massive between Anka's thighs, even now that the dryad had more meat on his bones. And Anka was no fool. He clearly realized Summerstoke in this form would be too much for him. His huge eyes held no small amount of fright, and he let out a sorry little whine Summerstoke was quite sure he didn't know he was making.

But he spread his legs further. Even as the thick Wrollf's meat spread the outer lips of his little cunny, looking obscene in its girth. Summerstoke rubbed it along the slit once, twice. Feeling the rings, a cold metal that must be hell on Anka's most sensitive bits, but which would feel incredible sliding against his prick. He put a big hand on Anka's belly, marveling at how young Anka looked next to any part of him, how dainty despite his whore's belly. How ready to be broken and abused. Then he dropped the hand to Anka's arse, to get purchase. He grabbed hold and pressed in. 

Anka had greased, he clearly had, and yet it was still too tight. Tight enough to be glorious for Summerstoke. He buried himself in that cunt, that tunnel clamping down on him wetly. Sliding into Anka made the dryad give the most beautifully ragged sound yet. It was defeated and pained and needy all at once, the sound of a pet that instinctively knew its place. Summerstoke had to work to get his pole in, it was so big and Anka so small. 

When he bottomed out, the metal rings were flush with his pubes. He leaned forward and licked up the tear tracks that had appeared on Anka's face. Anka was taking great shuddering breaths now.

"Who has the better present: me or you?" Summerstoke growled.

Anka needed a few moments to answer, as if the cock inside him had driven out his ability to speak.

"M-me, Master. S-so warm in me. H-hurts, but it's so warm--"

Summerstoke loved fucking dryads. Loved it. 

He set a rhythm that was about his pleasure, not Anka's. A good fucking rut, no matter how tight the boy was, because in this form it was always harder to control himself. And he didn't really need to. Anka's ragged song had not let up, that mix of little moans and gasps. Though his channel was undoubtedly fucked sore within the first few thrusts, heat alone could work miracles on Anka's kind. 

He sobbed out, "Oh, please, Master, deeper, please--"

As if all he wanted was that long rod of warmth to fill him up. And Summerstoke wasn't even using much finesse. If he liked, he could have sought out the little angles in Anka's tunnel that were guaranteed to make him scream with pleasure, the places where a scrape of cock would have the dryad jerking and drooling. 

Later, perhaps. For now he'd plow Anka until the boy couldn't take anymore. He grabbed hold of a tit, too, and twisted the pretty nipple, making the bell on it ring. Both bells rang a bit in time with his thrusts, but not enough. But there was the willow switch, right next to them on the bed.

Summerstoke took it up, and, with precision, managed to lash right on one lovely green nipple. Anka positively _writhed_. His cunt clamped down even harder than before, a delicious vise. Summerstoke lashed the other tit and Anka did it again. And the sound -- the melody of well-fucked wails and jingling bells. Summerstoke couldn't get enough of it.

When he was through with the boy, Anka was full of hot cum and striped across his tits with the prettiest ribbons of green yet. 

"What do you say?" Summerstoke told him.

When he slid his cock out of Anka, even that persistently-tight cunny couldn't quite close. It gaped just the tiniest bit, flushed now with deeper emerald, Summerstoke's cum dribbling out in bursts. Summerstoke looked at it with satisfaction. 

"Th-thank you for my present, Master," Anka said. 

Now Summerstoke wanted to see him mouth the lash, so he brought the willow switch to Anka's mouth. 

Despite the tears streaking his face and the ruin of his cunt and tits, Anka kissed it obediently, just as he'd kissed the boot.


	7. The Circus Clutch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anka meets some more dryads! And Mr. Shamrock has his day.

One day, when Anka was about six months along and very heavy, the awful whistling cold about the manse broke. Sunshine peeked through the windows, such a lovely sun Anka was hypnotized by it. The bare, ugly trees began to have green tips, as he did, and what he could see of those he liked as well, liked in a way he couldn't quite explain, as if they were family he'd never known, putting on fine clothes to greet him.

Him. Him who had no family. Who was lucky to have Master and his little room in the coal cellar, and who ought to be doing more than admiring trees. 

He became a distracted at his work, making the maids despair of him, and had to try very hard not to wander to the exits against Mistress' orders. He was like this every year, though. It was the way Monrovia finally stopped punishing him with cold. It was time for Spring, and soon it would be Blooming Day.

He had never before celebrated it in any way, really. He had no mother to put crowns of flowers in his hair, and no one to send him sweet-smelling posies like the fine ladies received from their suitors in the post. He had never danced about the floral pole, only watched other people do it, often while taking a very different sort of pole in him, a rather less pleasant kind. He had not the faintest idea how to make sweet lavender cake, though Elsie, who was the kindest maid, did try to teach him.

On Blooming Day itself, all the maids were given the day off. The fine ladies left in chattering groups to visit their families, or to see one of the many Spring fairs blossoming up in the Capitol and its suburbs. And Mistress called Anka to her office. 

She slid twenty little coins across the table to him. Anka stared at them dumbly. He knew he made more money than this for Mistress with even one good tup, but he was used to receiving none of it. And he'd spent his whole life having absolutely no money at all. The twenty pence felt forbidden, far too much treasure for the likes of him.

Mistress made a disgusted noise, as she often did when she thought Anka was being stupid, which was often. 

"For the Wakeshire Fair," she said. "Mr. Shamrock will of course accompany you. You may wander without him once there, but you are to meet him at the ringing of the seventh bell. If you do not make it in time, just think. Tomorrow the iceman makes his delivery. I shall enjoy forcing his wares into your holes, followed by his cold, sharp ice pick, until you remember your place. Are we clear?"

They were clear, for by now Anka knew she would make very good on the threat. Just hearing it made him shiver. But he was more than frightened. He was also horribly grateful. Mistress was letting him go to the fair. She was letting him celebrate Blooming Day.

"Wear a bonnet and gloves. I don't need anyone knowing what you are and trying to spring you away," Mistress said. "And Shamrock will give you a sign to wear to tell people you're an indenture, so don't even think of running yourself. Because remember: iceman. Now, why are you still standing there? Go, you stupid thing."

Anka went. Outside, on the back step, Mr. Shamrock was waiting with a little cart and donkey. He grunted at Anka to climb up in the back, which Anka did with some difficulty now that his belly was so big, and then they were off. Though it was still chilly outside, now Anka had a warm flannel smock, a warm bonnet, even gloves to shelter him from the nipping breezes. He could sit in the rumbling cart and admire the green-tipped trees on the road, waving at him as if they knew him. 

Sometimes Anka dreamed about people who might know him. A lovely dark-haired lady. A golden head, golden as a proper dryad, snuggled close to him. But no one really knew him. No one but the trees, and now maybe Master.

When they reached the fair, Mr. Shamrock did indeed make Anka wear a heavy wooden sign about his neck. Anka didn't mind. He couldn't read, so he wasn't even sure what it said. And he had twenty pence, and was being permitted to see the fair. That was a treasure no heavy sign could ruin for him.

He began to happily wander. There were booths selling pinwheels, which he did not see the purpose of, and booths selling pretty flowers, which he admired but which made him sad, as he did not understand why they'd been picked. They'd be wilting and dying soon. To Anka that seemed a crime. There was one booth selling potted living things, little green trees and bushes and such, and he wanted badly to buy those. But he did not have enough money, and Mistress would likely not let him keep anything in the lovely conservatory.   
There was no light for a plant in his cellar room. He knew he should be grateful for the heat in his room, but now thinking of it felt like going back to a cage. He had forgotten how much he loved sunlight.

The fortune tellers and Blooming day dancers were exciting, as were the men in their boxing ring. The Peskies with their slapping fish puppet show were funnier than they ought to be, once he dared get close enough to listen. But nothing enthralled him like simply walking about in the sun. He ambled all over the fair in a sort of happy sun daze, letting it hit his face, wishing he could climb up into the beautiful blue sky and live inside the day.

And he bought food. Such food! Lavender cake, and fresh meat pies. Sticky toffee apples, and mugs of hearty ale. One woman was selling what she claimed were buttered knobs, which made him think of the fine gentlemen. But when he dared to get close, it wasn't at all what he thought. These nobs were bumpy golden rods with sweet yellow kernels all over them. When he bought one, the woman warned him that it was fresh off the fire and hot. She was amazed to see him eagerly bite into it. The warmth exploded on his tongue and the heat going down into his belly made the babe kick like it was happy. He bought three more.

By the fourth bell, he was so satisfied he thought he could never feel better. Though the day before he'd had Lord Sitwell and Sir Coyningham, and there was still a sting in his bum something awful from the ginger they liked to twist into him, today was still the best day he'd had in his life. Even being with Master wasn't like this. Anka felt impossibly light, like if he closed his eyes he might drift off and float away somewhere. Somewhere sunny and not cold in the least.

By now a great many men had assembled a pair of colorful tents at the edge of the fairgrounds. There was a big sign up, too. Anka wandered over though he could not read it. A crowd had gathered there and was admiring the sign. It had a woman with enormous muscles, a number of strange animals Anka had never seen before, and a picture of a fire swallower. There was an Eelie with a snake coiled about its neck, a Drukk like Stan Sneel, and a pair of tiny people with the bodies of children and the faces of grown humans. And there were six slender naked creatures on the sign. Boys with pointed ears, green-tipped fingers and toes. Little cocks, soft pillowed chests, and painted slits to show where they had cunts like Anka.

"Yes, it's A.P. Putnam's Magnificent Circus!" roared one of the assembling men. "Newly returned from Irvidistan! Come see the elephants! Come see the Clay Woman, the strongest woman in the world! Come see the randy Drukk! Come see the Switches!"

 _Switches_.

The world dropped out from around Anka. Though now the crowd had thickened, and was shoving him in their haste to get to the shouting man, he scarcely noticed. Other Switches. Switches like him. These all had proper golden hair to go by the picture, so maybe they were more Switch than him. But as he'd never seen any kind of fellow Switch at all, he was desperate to see these.

"Starts in thirty minutes! Only five pence!" roared the man. 

Anka pulled out his remaining coins greedily, eager to give them over. But he only found four. Four pence. Not five. 

He'd spent the rest already. 

He felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. Other Switches, right here. And he could not see them. He felt horribly stupid. Tears pricked at his eyes. All the sun of the day fell away, all the joy. Instead of feeling light, he was punted back to earth, punted down far, far lower than the coal cellar.

There was a papery laugh in front of him.

Mr. Shamrock materialized out of the crowd. He loomed up over Anka, and his eyes crinkled with mirth at Anka pitifully holding no more than four coins.

"Poor Anka," he said. "You need one more to see your kind, eh?"

Anka nodded miserably.

Mr. Shamrock held up a fist. In it was a coin. Anka's breath hitched.

"I could pay your way," said Mr. Shamrock easily. "But nothing comes free, Anka."

"A-anything," Anka said instantly. Anything to see the other Switches.

Sometimes Mr. Shamrock caught him in the halls and forced Anka's hands on the bulge in his trousers. He'd grin at Anka and say, "Not the slightest bit curious? Sure you don't want to see it?"

And Anka would stammer out, "N-no thank you."

At least before dutifully amending it to, "Not unless Mistress or my Master say I should."

He had no idea if either his owner or Mistress would want him to do things with Mr. Shamrock. He didn't care, either. He _needed_ to see the Switches.

The sun was going now, and Mr. Shamrock led him to a dark patch of field where he'd parked the cart.

"Bend over," he grunted at Anka. "Want that little bum, I do."

This was a hard position for Anka now, with his stomach weighing him down so, but by holding onto the cart he managed. Mr. Shamrock flipped Anka's smock up, so that the chilly air bit his bottom. His large, meaty hands ground into Anka's thighs a few times. Anka could hear him undoing his trousers, could smell the odd smell that he always had.

But then he came around to where Anka could look at it.

"Want you to see what's gonna fuck you. Never seen an Omnion cock before, I bet, Anka."

Anka had not. For a few moments, he could only stare in utter fascination. Mr. Shamrock's cock had papery, whispering, moving petals about it, like the flowers he'd seen all over the fair today. They formed a bulb and then parted to reveal the long, mushroom-headed column in the center, which waved and undulated. The mushroom cock had a cheerful little rim at the end much larger than a man's piss slit.

"I thought it would be ugly," Anka said dumbly. 

It was very strange. But it wasn't ugly. Indeed, when the fading light hit the papery, iridescent colors, it was almost pretty.

Mr. Shamrock laughed his rustling laugh again.

"Ugly's how it feels when I fuck you with it," he promised. "Just you see. But you'll take it, Anka, and then we'll go to the circus."

And then he was back at Anka's rear, spreading Anka's arse cheeks. As he pushed the long, odd mushroom-dick into Anka's already-sore bottom, the papery petals of him whirred and smacked Anka's backside. The mushroom wriggled its way into Anka's rear. Anka thought he could have liked it if it was warm, but it was slimy and a little cold. It was like being penetrated by a large earthworm. He grimaced at the way it undulated. Its rippling in his guts seemed to spur it on to deeper and deeper penetration. As it burrowed in him, Anka rocked on the balls of his feet, whining, anxious and jittery enough to make the heavy sign on his chest flap once, twice against his tits. 

This at least distracted him briefly from the bizarre cock inside him. 

It hit a spot that seemed too deep. Then it went going. It curved itself inside him, in the coil of his intestines. It made Anka _feel_ those bits of him, which was a thing Anka could hardly understand. He gave a little keen at it, and Mr. Shamrock laughed.

Then the rippling and penetrating stopped. Anka let out a hard breath, expecting Mr. Shamrock to start fucking him properly. 

Mr. Shamrock did nothing of the sort. At the base of his dick, the rim of Anka's arse, the mushroom pole _thickened_. There was no other way to describe it. It was almost like a Wrollf's knot, but much colder and more slimy, and as soon as it pushed the thick bit into him it was thin and wormlike again. Then came another thick bit. Then another. The cock itself went no deeper, but kept pumping little round thicknesses along his channel, and Anka realized with a start that these fat oval bumps were _eggs_. 

The first reached the end of Mr. Shamrock's cock-tube, and with a plop lodged itself in Anka's intestine. Anka made a guttural sound, too stunned to think. There were more eggs along the tube -- eggs and eggs and eggs -- and as Mr. Shamrock's cock undulated out of him they plopped out too. Heavy, slimy, and cold, they were shot deep into his most private places, making him cry out in shock.

Mr. Shamrock must have put thirty or forty eggs in him. They were crammed in there good. They felt horribly uncomfortable. Even standing upright again was awful, with the eggs in his aching bottom. They moved around in him as he moved shakily behind Mr. Shamrock, in the direction of the circus. 

Mr. Shamrock had put his cock away and was now whistling.

"Keep 'em in," he warned Anka. 

Anka nodded. He could barely understand how to get them out. The sticky slime seemed to help lodge them in, and the last of that slime had even hardened somehow, and was now stoppering up his burning backside. He wanted more than anything to force the eggs all out, but he'd have to squat in the middle of the field, in the middle of the crowd around them, and push like hell to do it. That was not an option.

At the smaller tent, Mr. Shamrock paid for two seats, and then they were following the crowd inside. Now every jostle from the passerby would hit Anka like lightning, because the eggs would jostle a bit too. Their persistent cold slime left him whimpering by the time Mr. Shamrock found them seats near the ring. These were hard wooden benches on which Anka could scarcely make himself sit. 

Sitting drove the eggs even deeper into him. He could hardly hear the shouts of the circus man who opened the show over the discomfort in his guts and arse. When the big pounding animals came out, with pretty ladies atop them, Anka discovered that they were sitting so close to the ring that the reverberations of the beasts' hooves made the eggs scrape about in him. He clutched his stomach and closed his eyes, breathing hard. Next to him Mr. Shamrock was laughing and laughing. At Anka or at the show, Anka could not tell.

He ended up blinking dumbly at the Eelie with the snake, seeing nothing, understanding nothing. Only knowing the slimy eggs that were cramping him up. The little man and woman with child's bodies he took in similarly, and it went the same way with the man who swallowed fire. He couldn't even think to comprehend whatever the pretty woman juggling iron weights was about.

Then the great torches about the ring flared. A murmur ran through the crowd. At first Anka saw nothing, because he was staring straight ahead, but then Mr. Shamrock slipped a hand under his bonnet and grabbed a hank of hair, pulling it to force his head back.

High up, in the perfect black of the ring top, was strung a line. From one platform to another. Along that wire, impossibly high, walked the Switches.

Staring at them almost made the eggs alright. Almost. Though the cramps were still horrible, Anka's fellow Switches were _beautiful_. So graceful, tiptoeing along, walking on their green-tipped hands, even cartwheeling on the line. There were four of them that Anka could see, all brown-skinned and golden-haired, and very nearly naked but for little swatches of green fabric at their hips. 

One Switch managed such a daring flip on the line that his fabric came clean off. The crowd gasped and cheered, as if this wasn't indecent but just good fun. The Switch landed like he wasn't bothered at all, landed with more elegance in his clever, gripping green toes than Anka thought he himself might possess in his whole body.

Then the other three Switches joined him. They tumbled and pinwheeled together, always landing perfectly. Anka laughed and gasped and clapped along with the crowd, despite the pain in his guts. It flared up and made him bend over a few times, but always he made himself blink through it and go back to watching the Switches. He was terribly proud of them, of how they seemed to walk on the air. He wished he was one of them.

Their show was over too soon. Then a dirty little Drukk came out to proposition the ladies. Anka sank back into the unhappy twinges and throbs of the eggs.

But a little flute sounded, just as the Drukk was saying something especially rude. From behind one of the great torches, out tripped one of the golden-haired Switches. 

It was the one that had lost its fabric swatch. It had evidently never recovered it, for now it was naked as anything. It skipped along the edge of the ring. When the randy Drukk caught sight of it, and the flutes and other instruments of the circus swelled to almost a shriek, Anka took in a sharp, frightened breath.

No. No. Anka knew how this went. That Drukk was going to catch the other Switch. It was going to fuck him right there in front of the crowd, and Anka would have to watch. As the Drukk chased the Switch, the music became faster and merrier, and the crowd laughed and jeered. But Anka could only watch in petrified fear. He knew what it felt like, to be fucked by such a foul, stinking cock. He knew the slender golden-haired Switch would be hurt. When the Drukk was nearly on the other Switch, Anka could not help himself, and tried to lunge from his seat and warn the creature.

Mr. Shamrock slapped a hand on his mouth and slammed him down in his seat again. Hard. The egg-cramps came in such a hard wave that Anka began to snivel pathetically around the meaty hand over his mouth.

"Sit down, stupid," hissed Mr. Shamrock. "It's only a show."

And so it was. Just as the Drukk came upon the thin golden-haired Switch, the music reached a crescendo. And from the shadows stepped two very tall, impossibly graceful figures. Golden-haired, but with firmer jaws and broader shoulders than Anka thought could be possible.

They were Switches. But they were also, decidedly, _not_. Anka's mouth dropped open, though Mr. Shamrock was still muffling him. He stared stupidly at the elegant new Switches. They had the same pointed ears and the same green veining as the others. But they were taller than many human men. The bulges in their fabric swatches were also much, much bigger than Anka thought any Switch bulge could be. The big Switches' muscular arms caught hold of the Drukk, and they shook the evil thing with pantomimed anger. 

As the crowd roared with laughter, one of the big Switches put the Drukk over his knee. The other produced a paddle and showed it off to the crowd. 

Then those Switches walloped the Drukk. As they did so, the pretty slender Switch watched them, batting its eyelashes and shaking its clasped hands about its face in expressions of gratitude. In the end, the Drukk was red-faced with shamed fury. It wriggled free and ran off the stage again.

The larger Switches had their show then, with the four thinner ones, including the one they had rescued. This time two swings were lowered from the ceiling of the tent. 

The six Switches climbed up to the swings, three to a side.

Then, without preamble, they began to fly.

-

The show ended thirty minutes after the sixth bell, and left Anka so quietly amazed that he could barely think. He walked behind Mr. Shamrock as the big Omnion shouldered their way through the crowd, scarcely even able to recall where they were going, or why. 

The Switches were all so beautiful. There were even impossibly handsome big Switches, handsome as Master, and Anka had never seen anyone quite so handsome as Master. And the Switches had somehow managed to soar through the air, never falling once. How had they done that? Could _he_ do that?

When they were out of the big tent, Mr. Shamrock led him around past the smaller tent, in the direction of the cart. But before they reached their destination, a flap of that smaller tent was forced up. A form a little shorter than Anka tumbled out. 

"Hello," it called out in a hopeful, musical voice.

It was the very slender Switch, the one that had almost been raped by the Drukk. He was no longer naked, though. Now he wore a heavy, warm-looking green robe, though his skinny feet remained bare. He padded across the field to Anka, smiling.

Anka looked up at Mr. Shamrock, his gaze pleading.

"Fine," Mr. Shamrock grunted. "I'll get you at the seventh bell. Keep 'em in you, now."

Anka nodded, pathetically grateful. As Mr. Shamrock rustled away, he turned to meet the Switch.

The other boy was even more beautiful close up. His skin was much duskier and lovelier than Anka's, and his green tinting not so garishly vivid. His ears were the most perfect points. But Anka thought the nicest thing about him was his curly golden hair. It was too pretty even for Anka to think to envy it. He could only admire it, knowing it was something far, far too nice for the likes of him.

"Wal v'reha lai d'lani!" cried the other boy as he reached Anka, his blue eyes shining. 

Anka blinked at him. 

The boy's face fell.

"D'lani walhe meera?" he tried instead.

Anka shook his head, hating the dismay this produced on the lovely Switch's face. But the dismay soon gave way to contemplation.

"I speak Monrovia, then," the boy said, with his beautiful accent making the words soar and curl. He put a thin hand to his chest. "I, Hil'ki."

"Heel-key," Anka repeated, trying and still absolutely mangling the name. 

The boy made an amused face, but gamely kept going. 

"You?"

"Anka."

For some reason, this made the boy flap his hands like a bird and give a little laugh.

" _Anka_? Well. Anka. You are D'lani."

"'m a Switch," Anka tried, hoping he was understanding right. 

"Yes. D'lani."

The boy poked the sign on Anka's chest.

"You work...Mees Reevenhall's? What is?"

Anka flushed. He didn't know if he was more embarrassed at the thought of having to explain, or if he was simply ashamed that this boy who couldn't even speak right could still read Monrovian, when Anka was so stupid and wretched he couldn't even begin to read or write.

"Servant?" the boy guessed.

Anka nodded, perhaps a little too quickly.

"We servants. In Irvidistan. Make money. But more money in Monrovia. Stay in Monrovia for warm. In cold, go to Irvidistan."

"That--that sounds lovely," Anka said, meaning it, but mostly just wanting to talk to this boy. To talk and talk and hold his attention as long as possible. A fellow _Switch_.

"I--I've heard it gets proper hot in Irividistan," he tried. "I'd love to see Irvidistan, me."

"Where you go in cold?"

"Me? I don't go anywhere," Anka said.

The boy frowned. 

"Go home? D'laniaa?"

"Oh," Anka said. "Yes. I stay at home. Miss Rivenhall's is a big warm house, and I stayed there through a lot of this winter."

Miss Rivenhall's didn't exactly feel like home, but he was _not_ going to talk about the Gin Tangle. This lovely, gleaming Switch boy could not ever, ever know that Anka was a dirty thing from the Tangle, not any more than he could ever know about the eggs cramping Anka up still.

The boy was staring at him now like he'd said something strange, however.

"You...stay in Monrovia? In cold?"

Anka nodded again. 

"You...no freeze? No die?"

"Yeah, it's just awful," Anka said, glad to find something they could agree upon. "I hate the winter. Always feels like it'll kill me."

The boy simply looked confused by this. He scrunched up his perfect pointed nose and muttered, "Q'farhe wal neeli d'lani?" Then his thin fingers reached around and found the hank of dark hair Mr. Shamrock had tugged out of Anka's bonnet.

"Why black?" he asked.

Anka shrugged sadly. He had no answer for that. He wished his hair was like the other Switch's, and said so. But this didn't make Hil'ki let it go. Hil'ki simply petted it for a few moments, as if it left him as much in wonder as his hair did Anka.

"Your tuo, they hair also black?"

"My what?" Anka said.

The boy frowned again. He pointed at the sign a little ways off, on which all six golden Switches were painted. "Tuo." He prodded Anka's stomach gently. " _Tuo_."

"I--I don't know what you mean," Anka said, hating that he didn't know.

The boy sighed. 

"In belly," he tried. "Is big clutch? I is two of four clutch. Haalka is one. Hil'ki is two. Hennat is three. Howat is four. Four is my clutch. And is Yann and Yorrat--" Here he stretched himself up, trying to get taller, and made a strongman pose to pretend he had muscles.

"Oh!" Anka cried. "The lovely big Switches!"

"Yes. Are old. Have had pre-dinkala. So they grow. They is two-clutch. What is word? Twins. Yann and Yorrat is two-clutch twins. Old. Haalka, Hil'ki, Hennat, Howat is four-clutch twins. Young. Together all twins, old and young, is tuo."

"Oh!" Anka cried, thinking he understood now. "Are they all your brothers? Are they your family?"

"Yes!" said Hil'ki excitedly. "Family! Tuo! Anka's tuo -- is pretty like Anka? Black like Anka?"

Anka's eyes widened. Hil'ki thought he was pretty? Him? He was nothing so gorgeous as a proper Switch like Hil'ki. But he still flushed a delightedly, as he tried to think of how to answer Hil'ki's question using the sorts of weaving, soaring thinking Hil'ki seemed to have.

"Anka -- me. My clutch. I _am_ my clutch. I mean, I haven't got any tuo."

Hil'ki blinked at him, even more befuddled than before.

"Anka is of two clutch?" he said, holding up two fingers. "Three clutch?" Three green-tipped fingers. "How big Anka's clutch?"

"No clutch," Anka tried, shaking his head.

"Four clutch?" Hil'ki tried, as if he simply thought Anka must be misunderstanding. 

Anka reached over and made him put three of his fingers down, leaving one.

"One clutch," Anka said. He tapped the finger. "Anka. This is Anka's clutch. Only Anka. Just me. No tuo."

Distantly, the seventh bell began to ring. Anka heard, from not so far off behind him, Mr. Shamrock's rustling voice calling, "Anka! Time to go, boy!"

But Hil'ki was only staring at him like Anka had said something impossible.

"Anka," he said slowly. "D'lani is never one-clutch. D'lani is _always_ born with tuo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why am I writing this so fast? Because of quarantine, baby. I am determined to finish this thanks to quarantine. If you're at all enjoying it, though, dropping me a line to say so is always appreciated.


	8. Kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anka decides that his life has gotten a little bit better. Anka may be a bit deluded.

Anka could not stop thinking of what Hil'ki had told him. Even Mr. Shamrock's continued attentions that night hardly penetrated through the shocked fog of his mind. 

Before the Omnion started the cart up again, he made Anka once again assume the bent position. He pulled out from one of his pockets one of the delicious buttered knobs from before.

"Noticed you liked these," he said. "Thought we could have dinner together back at the school."

Then he forced the knob into Anka's cunt. It was much colder than the ones Anka had eaten before, but Mr. Shamrock said, "You'll warm it up, see?"

And between that and shock of speaking to another Switch, not to mention the bumps roughing about inside him, Anka was too overwhelmed to argue. He took the intrusion with only a few ragged grunts. 

The knob and the eggs rattled in him in time with the cart as it made its way back to the manse. By the time they arrived, the great house was shrouded in night. Mistress and the fine ladies were clearly already asleep. Mr. Shamrock led the unsteady Anka into the hall, then, amazingly, opened the door to the pretty little wallpapered breakfast room where the ladies ate their fresh fruit and chattered in the mornings.

"Time for dinner," he announced almost gaily, as if he'd been waiting for this a long time. He sat on one of the pretty carved wooden chairs, making it look ridiculous with his weight. Then he pulled Anka onto his lap. The eggs and knob jostled, so that Anka couldn't help but cry out. Mr. Shamrock flipped his smock up again and smacked his bottom until he got Anka to climb up on the breakfast table. 

There was already a plate laid out there, and a full set of the dainty breakfast utensils the ladies used. These things looked like doll's toys between Mr. Shamrock's meaty fists. He made Anka squat over the plate, then reached around and twisted out the plug of slime that stoppered up Anka's rear. Anka then had to push the eggs out, a torturous process because there were so many and they were so deep. He strained and strained, crying at the renewed burn in his poor back channel. 

Mr. Shamrock approvingly stroked his own thigh. He speared the eggs with a little fork cheerfully as they came out, and devoured each one with relish.

"You'll thank me when the babe comes," he said. "Nice old Mr. Shamrock preparing you for birth."

Babe or babes. Even now, in his overwhelmed state, Anka's brain circled back to Hil'ki. _Tuo._ All Switches had _tuo_ , were born in sets, with their own families. But how could such a wretched thing as him have a family?

Overloaded by emotions, he went back to pushing out Mr. Shamrock's dinner. The huge hand massaging the massive thigh now migrated up and rubbed Anka's shaking belly. The touch was almost kind. The Omnion was very pleased, smiling around the juicy eggs crackling between his teeth.

"Been a long time since I had 'em flavored by a Switch," he said happily. "Got all your nice green taste in 'em, they do, Anka."

Anka nodded shakily and kept pushing. There were at least ten or twelve to go, still lodged in him and cramping him up. 

When he finally had the last one out, Mr. Shamrock removed the buttered knob from Anka's cunt and had Anka eat it. Despite having eaten so much at the fair, Anka was by now exhausted and starving. The knob tasted too-musky and unusual, flavored by the slick of his own cunt, but he gnawed at it nevertheless. 

Mr. Shamrock then took him down to the kitchens and had him wash the plate and utensils. As Anka worked, he sat back with his hands on his wide, satisfied belly, and said, "Good day, eh, Anka?" with that broad smile still on his face.

\- 

After this Mr. Shamrock was a bit nicer to him. 

Mistress was a bit nicer as well, but for an entirely different reason. When Anka was about seven months along, his tits began to ache. Soon enough, they were so fat and flush with milk that when he woke he would find little pearls of pale green fluid beading from his nips and wetting the inside of his smock. 

The warm flannel started to feel far too rough on those now impossibly-sensitive nipples. This was torture as Anka lugged up his coal buckets and scrubbed the floors. But what was even worse was the heavy pressure in his breasts. He wanted so badly to just expel it, but as soon as Mistress noticed his milk coming in, she forbade precisely that.

"We want you full for your suitors, Anka," she told him. 

The fine gentlemen certainly did love that milk. Anka was forbidden from so much as tasting it, so that every last drop could go to his bookings. Some men, like Lord Everett, praised him for its sweetness. Others, like Mr. Grice-Baudelaire, commented on its exquisite freshness. Like Mr. Shamrock, many of the fine gentlemen were now quick to declare Anka something of a delicacy, as they eagerly latched their lips to his tits and helped release some of the pressure there. Often they fucked him at the same time, and Anka would be left dizzy by how the relief in his poor heavy tits contrasted with the pain in his sore little cunt.

Lord Baxter worked the tits into his rope games now, winding bindings around them until they were protruding and purple, and so squished that the milk freely dribbled out on its own as Anka cried. Lord Worthington of course enjoyed paddling them, and making Anka guess which tit would give more milk that day (twenty lashes if Anka wagered wrong). 

Sir Chester still liked his Spot games, but now he sometimes wanted Anka wearing cow ears and mooing. He would sit on a little stool and milk Anka into a pail and say, "Oh, it's my Bessie! My sweet little Bessie. Does my Bessie want her milkie?" which was Anka's cue to burrow his face into Sir Chester's trousers and moo around his shriveled old cock like that cock was a gift. 

The tits even made Mr. Gladstone and Lord Brocket take something of an interest in him, for all that they preferred Anka to be no more than part of the furniture. 

Now they had no need to force a cream bottle in him. They could simply reach down and tug his milk into their coffee from his breasts, the left tit for Mr. Gladstone, the right for Lord Brocket. 

"It has been months and the Countess remains as barren as ever, my dear Benjamin."

Tug on the left tit, hard, so that pain shot through the nipple but some of the heaviness eased a bit. 

"My dear Franklin, you will recall that she is the Queen now."

Tug on the right tit. Also hard. Anka had to strain not to move or make a sound, submerged in how the hurting of his nip came with the small consolation of being milked just right.

"Benjamin, Queen or Countess, she has never produced any heirs, not for His Majesty nor for the dear departed Count."

Tug. Anka was straining from the thighs now. He wanted to wail but knew he couldn't. 

"Even so, she _is_ the Queen. And the King is very old. Perhaps the whispers are right, and he has gone impotent."

Tug. The tray on Anka's back rattled imperceptibly. He couldn't help it. He prayed, prayed that the two men wouldn't notice. It was nice to have a session where his cunny wasn't jammed full of something for once. He didn't want to ruin that.

"Balderdash, Benjamin!" Mr. Gladstone was saying in the meantime. "Not to mention treason. The King has bastards, and may yet produce more, while that woman is thirty-five and barren. This marriage has benefitted the King not at all. Only Allerton benefits. Why -- now he doesn't even bother asking the council to get his little anti-inhuman proclamations through. His new brother-in-law is all too eager to approve them for him! It is as they say--"

Mr. Gladstone gave the hardest tug yet, really squeezing the hanging, sore flesh of Anka's breast to get a good stream going. Anka opened his mouth without thinking, let out a breath that was just a touch too loud.

"--why buy the cow, if you can get the milk for free?"

Mr. Gladstone brought his coffee cup up to his lips, sipping it thoughtfully. 

"I say, did the dinner tray move? Naughty tray. You'll take the salt shaker in your cunt for that."

-

Still, even if he dismayed Gladstone and Brocket, and was switched across his feet by Mistress for his failure, that was all she did. Just a switching. She didn't send him out to serve Stan, nor did she force her cold tentacles into him when the increasingly bright spring sun distracted him from his cleaning and sweeping. The most she ever did, now that his milk had come in, was switch him, and never in his most sensitive places, even. 

"You're very lucky that your profits have tripled," she told Anka, after lashing his feet for a spate of unwise daydreaming. "If I'd known, I would have induced your milk sooner. I shall write Summerstoke about what a little treat you're becoming."

Anka felt himself go warm at that, despite the pain.

His Master had only visited him twice more, both times before Blooming Day. Anka longed to see him again. At night, when he could hardly sleep for the discomfort in his tits, he'd finger his cunt and pretend it was his Master doing it. 

Master always gave Anka pleasure. Deliberate pleasure, not accidental like it was just a side effect of Anka hurting for him. 

When Master had come to see him two weeks before Anka's fair excursion, he'd started by giving Anka such a long, wet kiss that Anka was dizzy with happy need. Then he'd made Anka disrobe him -- kissing his boots, of course -- and bathe him in the tub, worship him with all the warmth of the water around them. He'd let Anka explore _his_ body: the beautiful planes of his stomach, the strong thighs. The wide, cruel mouth. Anka had asked to kiss it again and, with a laugh, Master had swept him up and let him. 

He'd then let Anka get to know his cock.

Not suck it, even. Not yet. Just touch it, feel the veins, explore the weight of the manly sack behind it. Pull back the foreskin and clean there with his mouth, as part of his task getting every corner of Master clean. 

"Feel its heft, Anka," Master had advised him. "It will be fucking you later, and I want you to come to like this human cock as well as my Wrollf cock. Unlike the Wrollf cock, I won't surprise you with this one. If I'm planning to fuck you as a man, you will always have a few moments to adjust to the thought of taking my man's cock in you. A few moments to show it proper respect as you come to understand what will happen with it. You may like my Wrollf cock best, but I expect you to cherish this one as well. You should know and cherish the things that own you, Anka."

After the bath, Master had buried himself in Anka's arse from behind.

"Today I'm a man, and you're the little animal I'm fucking," he'd told Anka. He'd let Anka's cocklet loose from its cage, and he had a hand on it, stroking it, making Anka spill jet after jet of green-tinted seed. "Are you happy, Anka? Are you pleased a man has kissed you like a person, let you bathe, fed you every hard inch of his man's cock?"

"Y-yes, Master!" Anka had squealed, lost in the pleasure from his cock and from the way Master was hitting him just right. He didn't even mind Master reminding him he was an animal. He didn't even mind how his arse already throbbed at the rough thrusts Master gave him. Master was deigning to play with his cocklet again, to wake it up. Master was bringing Anka to pleasure like that was a thing that mattered, and that alone left Anka sobbing with gratitude.

The second time, a week before Blooming Day, Master was waiting for Anka as a Wrollf.

He was in the sedate guest bedroom he favored for their trysts, with the curtains drawn tight about the windows and the fire banked low so that there was no light in the room. All Anka saw was the large form on the bed, wrapped in a fine dark robe, watching him with slitted poison-green eyes. 

Master gave a predatory growl. Anka, who had not been expecting to find Master in the room already, dropped to his knees. 

"M-master--I thought you were not here yet--"

He hadn't even given his holes the good greasing he meant to. He'd greased them in the morning, because by now he greased them every morning, but Master was one of those men who required all the preparation Anka could muster. He was so big as a man, and even bigger as a Wrollf.

"Are your little bells on?" Master had said, voice deep and rough.

Anka nodded, relieved that he'd taken a few moments to clip them on under his smock while he was coming up the stair. By now he knew he was always to wear the bells for Master, in both his tits and his cunt. 

"Strip. Dance. I want to hear them."

Anka could strip, but he had never before danced. Dancing was one of the things the fine ladies did. Dancing was a thing pretty human maids did on Blooming Day. No one ever looked to Anka to manage anything so graceful and beautiful as a dance. 

But this was Master's order. So he'd stripped, shivering in the cold air of the room, and done his best. He was so icy and uncomfortable, but he held on to the sound of Master's growls, which told him when he was doing it right. He used those as his guide. He moved his hips to and fro, making the cunt bells jingle, and whirled so that his tits sang too. He quickly realized that Master preferred a slow dance where he could see Anka to a fast one. 

The dance took on a life of its own. It seemed to be a thing Anka didn't need to learn, but only to feel. He waved his bottom and cupped his tits. He bent his back and undulated, even passed his fingertips through his cunt and made playing with himself a part of it. When he reached the bed where Master was, he put a foot on the footboard and slowly humped one of the carved wooden posts. If he couldn't dance, at least he could fuck, and maybe they were not so different. The only difference seemed to be that now he was doing it to himself, so he could try to be elegant about it. 

He wanted to be elegant. When he whirled or moved just right, even he could trick himself into thinking, for an instant, that despite the terrible cold he was flying.

Then Master was on him. He pounced, knocking the breath from Anka, and dragged him onto the bed. His bulk weighed Anka down into the cushions. Anka was inundated in his scent, the smell of his drooling, enormous cock. It forced its way into his mouth with Master above him, rutting into him like an animal, but blanketing him with sudden Wrollf heat as well. The flying spell was broken, replaced by a submersion in cock. As Anka struggled to get at least part of the great pole in his throat, Master attended to Anka's cunt, roughly licking and licking and licking. Anka's bells jingled and Anka fucked up into his mouth, wanting more rough tongue on his needy slit. 

When Master pulled off with a great groan, Anka whined. He fucked up into the cold air. Master's cock slid out of his mouth, and Anka mouthed after it with bruised lips for a moment, only wanting the heat back. Master sank back into the silken pillows, sitting so his cock protruded straight up.

"Dance," he told Anka, pointing to his cock again. "Get your cunt on it and dance."

Anka breathed in sharp, suddenly afraid. 

Most of the time men didn't like him to ride them. They liked to plow into him, so they had the control. The few times Anka had been made to ride a man stood out, because those men had been a bit softer, a bit kinder. There had been an almost-sweet peddler back in the Tangle who'd liked Anka to sink onto his dick. He'd worked such long hours, he'd told Anka he wanted the whore to do most of the work. And work it was, for all it sometimes meant less battering of Anka's holes. 

But Anka had never ridden a cock this size before.

He managed to straddle it. His little slit looked pitifully tight above the big, blood-engorged head. Master made an impatient noise.

Anka spread himself as best he could, making the bells jingle again. Then, legs tense as he balanced unsteadily, he began to lower himself down. He didn't quite want to impale himself on it. He expected the obscene, burning stretch that immediately came. Master's prick was like an impossibly thick skewer, and it ground the cold metal piercings and bells into his vulnerable mound as he fucked himself onto it. 

He was doing this to himself. That made it somehow worse. Master was not touching him, was not forcing him down. Anka was the one doing it. Anka was raping himself on Master's big cock. 

Tears came to his eyes. The heat was still so good, but the pain--

Now the pain took over. Pain he was forced to chase, to sink himself onto.

This dance was less elegant, and there was no mistaking it for flying. Every movement made him feel Master's cock absolutely, spearing into him. He didn't dare stop moving despite the horrible stretch. 

The growls once more told him when he was doing it right. Better now to go fast than slow, even if he had to reach out plaintively for Master and beg to hold onto the Wrollf's broad shoulders. He fucked himself onto the big cock over and over, until by some horrible trick it began to feel good. As good as it was painful. He found a good spot deep inside him--

But no. Now Master's hands closed on his hips. 

"The dance isn't for you, Anka," Master said. "The dance is for me."

Then he'd adjusted his thrusts, given a great roll of his hips. Anka flopped on his dick, thrown off, and felt himself slide down another half-inch. So little and yet so much. He cried out. 

To bottom out this way would kill him, he was sure, but now Master had command of his hips. Master made him go even faster, sink even deeper. His rod kept glancing by the spot inside Anka, just glancing it. Anka was getting wet. The bells jingled furiously. 

Anka felt this fuck more than he'd ever felt a fuck before in his life. He was little more than a sleeve for Master to play with. His mingled need and pain made his toes curl. He threw his head back, forgetting to try and dance. Master controlled him, fucked him on his burning cock so that Anka let out little moans in time with the thrusts. He was close. He was so close, but still nowhere near close enough. He was full, but he wanted Master angling a bit differently. Master only angled just enough to make Anka understand the pleasure he _could_ feel, not to let Anka thoroughly feel it. 

Eventually, with a roar, Master shuddered and came. Anka did not. Master's wash of cum spattered up and then out of Anka. He fucked Anka down once more, twice more, letting Anka have a bit more of his pole. Anka was begging for just a little more despite the pain, but Master ignored him. He lifted the Switch off of his dick.

"Stop whinging. Clean me up," Master said. "You've done well, considering. You may wrap yourself in my robe while you lick up the mess you made, so you're warm." 

Anka took the warm robe with shaky hands, still wanting something more in his throbbing cunt. The robe smelled like Master, like a powerful animal. Like sex and sweat. But it kept him from shivering as he licked up all of Master's spend. When he was done, Master made him lie with his head by the foot of the bed. He fell asleep with the tip of Master's cock in his mouth. 

Before he did, Master played long fingers through his slit and finally gave him a quick little orgasm of his own. 

"Be grateful," Master advised, and Anka nodded around the cock in his mouth, and was grateful.

-

Master was not a _tuo_ , but he was the closest Anka could seem to get to flying. Anka slept little, but when he did manage to rest his dreams were now no longer of the dark lady and the golden-headed dream brother. Now they were of staring rapt at Hil'ki and his siblings, worshipful, as they flew through the air. He would want to join them, but could not. He was always on the ground, sitting on Master's lap, with Master buried inside him.

"I'm letting you watch them, Anka," Master would say. "I do not need to do that. What do you say?"

"Thank you," Anka would say, over and over, in the dreams.

Anka did not have a _tuo_. He did not have a family. This was a thought so cold it seemed nothing could warm it. But sometimes, at night, when his tits ached and his holes ached worse, if he managed to hit his little inner spot and rub his nub just right, he would think of Master.


	9. Improvement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The school has a party, and everyone enjoys it. Everyone but Anka, of course.

Anka's belly continued to grow, which seemed to drive up profits. 

Mistress never told him precisely how much he made for her, but he had the sense that she charged more for him now that he was closer to giving birth. Despite the evident increase in price, there was no decrease in attention. The fine gentlemen apparently paid what Mistress demanded, for the pleasure of rutting Anka every which way they so desired. 

This put Mistress in a better and better mood. More than once, though Anka messed up his maid duties when he became distracted by a spot of sun, or by the pretty spring birds flying about outside the windows, she didn't even lash Anka at all.

This left him very bold and made him ask for something he would not have otherwise.

An extraordinarily pretty young girl, with masses of dark chestnut hair and arching chestnut brows, had come to the school a few months ago. Though Anka always kept his head down respectfully among the fine ladies, not even daring to notice them, she noticed him.

Her name was the Honorable Miss Euphemia Swansea. When he failed to dust all the statuettes in the study, Miss Euphemia would archly catch his eye and point with her chin at the ones he'd missed. Once, she'd even discreetly taken up a corner of her embroidered shawl and cleaned one for him, moments before the head maid was about to sweep into the room to inspect his work.

If Anka did not sweep all of the conservatory properly, Miss Euphemia would wait until the other fine ladies' backs were turned, and move a fern or two to hide the dusty spots. 

If Anka was scrubbing the front steps, and losing his sense of things because he was so, so very glad to just be out in the sunshine, Miss Euphemia would often find him before Mr. Shamrock did, and would hiss, "Anka, dear! He's coming!" So that Anka would know to put his mind back into his work.

He had no notion of why this lovely human girl should be so kind to him. But Miss Euphemia had cornered him almost immediately upon her arrival, introduced herself, and then said, without preamble, "I understand you're here because dear cousin Robert pulled you from a gaol? Oh, how horrid it sounds! I'm so glad he found you. I hope we shall be friends. And if I can do anything to aid in your improvement, you must tell me. I'm just like you, you see. Cousin Robert is improving me too."

It had taken Anka a few weeks to understand that her cousin Robert was none other than his Master, the Earl of Summerstoke. Each time Master came to see Anka, apparently he came not to see Anka but to see Euphemia. Anka very nearly hated Euphemia for this, except that Miss Euphemia was already too unfairly hated in some corners. She was a bit younger than the other girls, and a bit insecure about them. She could be too shrill or too insistent about her principles. And though Venetia Darracott and Olive Hopewell doted on her, and Lady Rosalind Montmoray declared her the loveliest face in the school, it was known that Euphemia herself had no real fortune and was little more than a country lass in her outlook. This made the ladies' attentions run hot and cold. 

"But I'm sure your cousin Robert will provide for you," Lady Rosalind sometimes told her. "You may well need it. Your face is so, so pretty. But your figure, my dear, is far too fat."

Miss Euphemia confided in Anka that she hated many of her companions and all of her classes, and that at being a lady she was a complete failure. Sometimes she wished she was back in the country with the trees all around her, and the fields, and the birds winging their way through the sky. Anka, who was usually scrubbing or mopping something while she spoke, would sigh and say, "That sounds lovely, miss," and mean it.

He'd never been to the country. It sounded beautiful, by far nicer than the Capitol or even Wakeshire.

"Have you ever been to Summerstoke?" 

Anka shook his head. He had never even really understood that Summerstoke might also be a place, and not just an extremely commanding person.

"Why on earth didn't Cousin Robert take you there? I think it would have helped you improve rather more than scrubbing a lot of floors. Do you really think you need much improving, Anka? I think you're very pliable and nice, not like me, and really I can't think what they're improving you from."

Anka could only gesture a bit helplessly at his belly.

"And I was in gaol, miss."

"What for?" Euphemia asked, interested. But at Anka's embarrassed flush she immediately apologized.

"Oh, forgive me for prying! I don't mean to. I'm a goose who loves gossip and the absolute worst example of a lady, I'm afraid--"

"Stealin', miss," Anka lied, because he did not like to hear Miss Euphemia berate herself. 

"Anka!" Euphemia cried, astonished. " _Stealing_? But that's wicked!"

"Everything I did," Anka said, now switching to the truth, "I did so's I could have some bread, miss. I swear it."

On the streets, he'd never whored himself for pleasure. Even now he never truly fucked for pure pleasure but five or six times, always with Summerstoke. On Summerstoke's visits, once in Summerstoke's townhouse, and once on the floor of the gaol, because there Summerstoke had been kind enough that he'd broken Anka with that kindness, in a way scores of cruelty hadn't even broken him. 

"Anka," Miss Euphemia had, said, looking troubled. "Could you not have become a clerk or something?"

Anka almost laughed.

"Me? I'm a Switch, miss. And I can't read."

"Can't _read_?" Euphemia had asked, aghast.

"Nor write neither, miss."

This was a bridge too far for Miss Euphemia Swansea. She proposed to teach Anka his letters, but Anka, knowing Mistress would not care to have him or Euphemia distracted that way, had declined. So Euphemia had decided to make him come to her, and had started a clandestine little group teaching one or two maids: Elsie Little and Mae Tucker. 

Anka, she declared, had a standing invitation to join the group. 

Anka did not dare to join until he saw Mistress so pleased with his takings. Then Anka dared to hopefully ask if perhaps, just for an hour a week, he could sit quietly and watch while Miss Euphemia taught the maids.

"That girl is insufferable," Mistress had said, rolling her eyes. "But as long as you give no trouble otherwise, I don't see why not."

So Anka applied himself to learning how to read. Though Miss Euphemia tried to draw him into her conversations with the two other girls, he was reticent to do that. He felt he would only show how stupid he was by comparison. So he would sit very still and silent on the floor by the fire and listen, and trace the letters out with a green-tipped finger on the carpet, committing them to memory.

He was surprised to find that, after only two sessions, he was rather better at recognizing the letters and sounds than Mae, and nearly as good as Elsie. He could manage to make out the simple sentences Euphemia wrote on her slate, even if the more difficult task of reading the broadsheet was beyond him. 

That was even a bit difficult for Elsie.

"L-lord Tav-Taverner w-will win in the N-n--"

"Norderlands," Miss Euphemia supplied. " _Brave_ Lord Taverner. I just love hearing of how he beat the wicked natives of the deserts. And quelled all those nasty riots in Irvidistan, and even made those awful Ordanians go jolly quiet. And now he's beating back those hordes of savage Wrollves that live in the Norderlands, so the men and women of the Royal Exploration Company can travel unmolested. It's _so_ good of him. He's Miss Rivenhall's father, you know. I do wish he'd hurry up and wallop those Wrollves in time to come to our Summer Cotillion. Do you think he would if he could? I would love to meet him."

The Cotillion loomed. On that day all the fine ladies' families would come to the school for supper and dancing, lively chatter and drinks. In particular, handsome older brothers and unmarried, well-to-do uncles and cousins were desired for the occasion. Anka's Master would be there for Miss Euphemia.

"Papa would come, but he would be such a bore, and any way he will not leave the country. He's innovating a new method of farming beets, you see," Miss Euphemia informed Anka after the reading lesson. "So it will be cousin Robert. Oh, I wish I could get him to see you and learn how much you've improved! Any time he comes he simply retires early to a guest bedroom Miss Rivenhall keeps for him. He's a great friend of hers, you know."

Anka knew rather better than she thought, and had the ever-smarting cunt to prove it.

The Cotillion caused him some anxiety, and not merely because Summerstoke would be coming. Almost all of the fine gentlemen would be there, to lavish affection on their sisters, cousins, and fiances. And to do more. Mistress was plainly planning for Anka to take part in the festivities. 

Just -- not the ones for the ladies.

He was stationed by the door on Cotillion night. Mistress had made him clean his best smock up nice, and his apron. As the guests arrived, he was to take the men's cloaks and hats and greatcoats and run them to the back room for storage. He was to smile prettily and be silent, no matter who he should encounter.

Most of the men pretended not to know him, with rather theatrical exclamations of surprise over his ears and green-tipped nails. But Sir Chester would not give up his coat until Anka stuck out his tongue to take a sweetie. His shriveled old fingers probed around Anka's mouth just a bit too long. Lord Worthington pretended to trip, so he could grope Anka's chest lewdly, pawing at one tit hard enough to leave a trail of milk on the inside of Anka's clean frock. Lord Baxter didn't bother pretending -- he simply slapped Anka's arse, hard, making Anka give an involuntary yip.

Summerstoke hardly looked at Anka at all, even though Anka couldn't help gazing at him. He was in a suit of such dark, splendid blue that it seemed black, with a tie pin made of some green jewel that matched his eyes. Anka had never seen him so handsome. His heart thudded furiously in his chest and he tried not to be dismayed when Summerstoke swept right past him.

As the men mingled with their much-adored counterparts in the conservatory, Anka struggled to help the maids put the finishing touches to the vast, beautiful dining room. He was slow and clumsy thanks to his belly, but every hand was needed to wheel out jams and asparagus for the sideboard, to arrange flowers and light candles until the whole room shone. Forty perfect, matching tables were assembled, one for each fine lady, and all had to have the right napkins, the correct order of plates. Though the maids had begun assembling the room hours ago, they were scarcely done before the great doors on one end opened, and all the resplendent lords and ladies swept in.

Anka's task then was simply to see to the water pitcher. Elsie the maid had told him this was likely to be easy -- such fine gentlemen were far more likely to wish to drink sherry, or brandy, or one of Mistress' excellent Ordanian vintages. Water was not terribly likely to be in high demand with such a magnificent bar as Miss Rivenhall traditionally offered.

Yet no sooner did the meal begin than three gentlemen -- Lord Rosebery, Sir Coyningham, and Lord De Clare -- were calling for water. Anka rushed to their tables to pour, and found himself accosted by discreet pinches to his bum each time. Lord Worthington immediately demanded water as well, and his pinch was rather less discreet. Mr. Loftus-Wedgewood didn't pinch, but did cough an obscene, cruel thing into his hand when Anka was close, making Anka flush an embarrassed green and hope desperately that no one heard. 

Then Sir Chester wanted water. Then Mr. Bucket. Then Lord Sitwell. Anka could not think for how thirsty the fine gentlemen were. He had to race from table to table and back to the sideboard for more pitchers, his bottom getting progressively more purple with pinches. To the ladies, seeing how very smiling and merry their beloved lords were, nothing was amiss. But Anka passed a miserable time, racing about on already-swollen feet and seeing all the wicked grins on the gentlemen's faces. 

Only his Master asked for nothing. Anka did not know whether this was to be kind, or if his Master simply wasn't interested in him at the moment, but Summerstoke passed the entire meal drinking sherry and talking animatedly to Miss Euphemia and Freddie Audley, as if Anka were no more than a particularly mobile part of the wallpaper. 

After the meal, half of the maids went to wait on the festivities in the ballroom, while the others began to clean. Mistress stopped Anka as he was in the middle of piling plates.

"Lavatory," she muttered. "Now."

Anka's eyes widened. He had wondered how the gentlemen could take in so much water. Some had asked for six or seven pours. Now, with a sinking heart, he understood why.

He was no sooner kneeling in the panel behind the wall than a familiar, shriveled little cock poked through. Sir Chester. 

"Get your milkie, Spot!" he gurgled out, laughing wildly. "Come, my Spot!"

Anka leaned forward and took it in his mouth, took it to the hilt like he'd been taught. Sir Chester began to piss, in a dribbling stream that was so acrid tears came to Anka's eyes. The taste was disgusting. It overpowered him, pungent and foul all over his tongue. Sir Chester had plainly helped himself to a great deal of the asparagus. 

When Anka was done drinking his urine down, Sir Chester said, "Suck your sweetie, my Spot," and Anka did. 

It was far less horrible than drinking the piss, for it wasn't so filthy or demeaning. But still his stomach lurched and he wanted to cry. Sir Chester would only be the first. Thirty-nine or so others were still to come. 

When Sir Chester was done, the next cock poked through, a fat stubby cock that could only be Lord Worthington. He scarcely gave Anka time to get his mouth on it, just let loose his stream and hit Anka in the face, made Anka sputter as he struggled to swallow the prick down and contain the foulness that was soaking him. Though the wall between them tempered Lord Worthington's usual enthusiasm, he still managed to rut into it and flop his prick about, making Anka choke on the horrible stream. 

Lord Worthington, too, wanted a suck after. The only consolation was that many of the later men didn't have time for that. Anka could hear the lavatory on the other side of the wall filling up, as the men queued and waited their turn. Each one seemed to want a chance to fill him, to shame him even if they could not see it. 

Some, like Mr. Loftus-Wedgewood, instructed Anka not to put his mouth forward but just to sit there and get soaked in it. They peered down through the hole to make sure he was obeying, then poked their cocks through. 

Some clearly went out, drank some more, and came back to join the end of the queue, having a go at him twice or more. Many said jeering things through the wall.

Almost all appeared to have enjoyed the asparagus. 

By the end Anka was shivering in his nasty, soiled smock, feeling the cold piss dry on him. He was so miserable, and while up until now he had felt the lavatory hole to be a sort of rest, a place he could at least be free of the men he serviced _knowing_ him, now he was hiccuping with total humiliation. The panel in the wall smelled terrible. He himself was sodden with piss like a dog’s bitch, his face and hair and chest drenched. 

He wondered if Master knew. Master had to know. He had not truly liked it when Master had pissed on him before, but it had been better than this. He would beg for that if only he didn't have to take this ever again. 

The men were joking about him, enjoying sharing him like this. 

"Have you ever lashed the slut?" Worthington was telling anyone who would listen. "Makes his cunt tighten like you wouldn't believe, by Jove!"

"I'll have to try that," said Rosebery. "Tried his arse?"

"You should hear the little whore scream when he's got a bit of ginger up there," said Lord Sitwell. 

In response, there came a great roaring communal laugh, as the gentlemen took notes on how best to completely destroy Anka.

-

After the lavatory hole, the night was not over. Anka was pulled out by Mr. Shamrock and instructed to wash himself quickly. He did this with relief, scrubbing and scrubbing himself in the Green Bathroom. And if left to his own devices he would have gone on scrubbing eternally, crying quietly at how dirty he felt. 

He had always simply presumed himself dirty. But he'd never _known_ it. To be pissed on, and jeered about -- it made him know it. It made him feel himself for what he was, which was nothing. He was a thing that existed to take cocks, no matter how rancid or how horrible they were. He was there to be cummed on and pissed on. He was not to know pleasure, except for with Master. He was to be lashed and beaten, tied up and plowed into. How stupid he was, trying to learn to read. Trying to pretend to have been improved. Trying to dream of Hil'ki, of other Switches, of a family. 

He was not to have a _tuo_. He wouldn't wish himself on the pretty black-haired dream lady or on his golden-haired dream brother. He wouldn't wish himself on any decent being. 

When Mr. Shamrock pulled him out of the tub, he was still crying.

"There, there, Anka," he said, dragging the sobbing boy to the Purple Room. "Come on. There's still work for you to do. Old Shamrock's built you a present, I have. It'll keep you from falling on your feet tonight."

It was a platform on wheels, with a sort of podium for Anka to put his head and hands through. The podium locked them in, so that he was forced to stand bent at the waist, his abused little bottom and pierced cunt available to anyone from behind. Secure manacles on his ankles locked him finally in place. This done, Shamrock rubbed his naked bum as if Anka were no more than a jittery horse that could be calmed.

"No tears, now, Anka," he said, not unkindly. "That's not even the worst part."

He wound a link of cold chain snug around Anka's hips. He attached six more chains to this, short tight ones, which he clipped to Anka's cunt piercings. They pulled back Anka's outer lips and made his cunt gape, the flushed green skin there now assaulted by the chill of the room. Anka squirmed fruitlessly as this happened.

"P-please," he sobbed. "Please, Mr. Shamrock. Oh, I don't _want_ this. P-please."

He knew in his heart that this only proved how stupid he was. When had his wants ever mattered? But he didn't want his cunt presented to the gentlemen. He didn't want it presented to anyone. He didn't want a cock in him at all tonight, or maybe ever, for he was so tired of being nothing, and he said so between great heaving sobs.

"Don't want cock in you?" Mr. Shamrock said, as if Anka were being ridiculous. "Boy, that's what you're _for_."

In the great purple-painted chest, he found a cold metal tube with a lens of glass at the bottom. This he wedged into Anka's rear after greasing it, clipping it also to the chain. 

It didn't matter that Anka was crying. It never mattered. Anka was wheeled into the big gathering room regardless, with his mouth swollen from cock, his cunt lips spread wide open, and a lens driven into his guts. 

All of the fine gentlemen were there. They had kept up their laughing and carousing. They were merrier than Anka had ever seen any one of them. Mistress circled about, exchanging chatter with them. Summerstoke was in the very back of the room with Freddie Audley, and he scarcely seemed to notice the boy being wheeled in, even though every other man noticed and was hooting or jeering.

"Before we start the auction," Mistress said, with the special airy voice she'd used when Anka had first met her, "I've prepared a little treat for the _very_ best donors of this academy. Under all of your fine tutelage, I'm ever so pleased to report that our own Anka has improved immeasurably. As you all know for yourselves, he's in the family way, and his young body might seem too tight for you all. But thanks to the diligent and determined massaging of your pricks--"

There was a round of laughter.

"--his pretty holes have simply _flowered_. You can look inside for yourselves, and see how flushed and engorged he is. He's the loveliest shade of emerald in there now. As for his cocksucking--"

"Always a treat!" cackled Sir Chester.

"--he's been taught to choke ever so much less--"

More laughter.

"--and to take anything, and I do mean anything, you choose to offer him. So for those of you who did not get a suck in the lavatory, then please. Feel free to use his mouth for the next hour or so. And if you desire some fresh, sweet milk? Then, my doves, there are always his pretty tits."

With a great cheer, the men descended. Hands pawed at Anka's tits, far too many, and at least two cocks poked at his whining mouth. Behind him, men prodded and slapped his bottom, enjoying the sight of two little Switch holes that, for months, had seen near-constant use. 

One gentleman Anka could not see began to massage his slit. It went wet, now so used to being played with and plowed that it didn't matter at all that Anka was miserable. His body knew what he was for even if he shied away from it. His cunt drooled at a touch, eager for cock.

The next hour was a haze of too much. Too many cocks in his mouth. Some men had him cradle their ballsacks on his tongue, which produced even more merriment and was roundly celebrated as a marvelous idea. 

They kept fingering his cunt. Mistress had given them paddles, so some of them also hit him just to see him jerk on the cock in his mouth. Or they took the edge of a paddle and ran it along his slit, guffawing at the way his hips tried to angle for more of that treatment. 

He was milked until he had no more to give, and his nipples were no more than points of hurt. 

In the middle of it, Master approached. Once. Just once. He seemed impervious to the orgiastic pleasures all around him. He simply took his place in front of Anka, reached down, and tugged a jet of Anka's milk into his cup. He brought it to his lips. Anka, dazed, watched him take a long drink. Master bent down so his mouth was at a level with Anka's ear.

"Splendid," he told Anka. 

Then he strode away. A cock took his place, smacking Anka on the face a few times until Anka opened his mouth to take it.

-

He was left with spend on his face and hair, on his rump and even his back, legs, and feet. 

He gazed sightlessly around the great room. Weary. He thought he might have come a few times from his cunt, a few times too many. He was so sore and cold. Mistress was speaking, but the words did not penetrate.

He felt so dirty. He was so dirty.

A man lifted a paddle. Anka had stopped being able to tell the men apart five or six cocks ago. His mind had deserted him. He could distantly hear a lot of excited murmurs. Another paddle. Another. Anka hoped no one would hit him with them. He was so tired of being hit.

Then he saw the last paddle. Master's. That was Master. Anka fixed on him and breathed out hard. 

He was nothing, but Master kept raising his paddle. Eventually Master came forward and put the paddle to Anka's mouth. Anka opened it. Held onto the handle. 

More paddles. One, then another. More murmuring. Anka was starting to remember what this was, in a bruised little corner of his brain. He saw the men joust with their paddles, saw when Master threw his hand in the ring. Again Master beat them out. 

Master's next paddle went in Anka's arse, after the thing lodged in it was taken out. Anka clamped around that paddle, too. It seemed important.

The last bids. More paddles, and more murmurs. Master and Mr. Audley were both throwing up their paddles, over and over and over. Anka now understood that very big numbers were being thrown out, too big for him to really comprehend. 

Master won. Anka let out a jagged breath. When Master's last paddle went in his cunt, Anka started to laugh without really understanding why he was doing it.


	10. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man in Summerstoke knows what Anka's good for. The Wrollf? No one needs to listen to the Wrollf.

Summerstoke winning the auction was of course a foregone conclusion.

He had made clear to Celeste he would accept no alternative. And, just in case she did not find a way to stack the deck in his favor, he brought along Freddie, who was to drive up the bidding so far that no reasonable man could think to compete, then delope at the final moment. 

He had not counted on Freddie's pitiably soft heart making the evening rather trying.

"I say, Summerstoke," Freddie said after Anka took their coats. "Awfully cold to the poor little thing, aren't you? He was trying to catch your eye."

At supper, as Anka flew about the room filling glasses, Freddie watched him uneasily and said, "Dash it, this much activity can't be at all good for a mother to be, you know."

Dancing and laughing in the ballroom with Euphemia, Summerstoke found Freddie repeatedly trying to catch his eye. Eventually the man actually stepped up and cut in, which was abominable of him.

"You need to see what's happening in the lavatory, Summerstoke! It's a disgrace! The absolute limit!" Freddie hissed under his breath, before whirling Summerstoke's cousin away. 

Unnecessary. Summerstoke knew precisely what was happening in the lavatory. A bit of rough treatment, a carefully-planned torment for Anka. The Wrollf part of him did not approve. But the Wrollf part of him was his least calculating and most territorial part, and rarely thought all too clearly. 

Anka was blossoming beautifully into precisely the sort of pet Summerstoke liked. But the best pets were the ones that loved their masters unconditionally. That feared any other takers as interlopers and strangers. Anka, Summerstoke had noted, did not seem to precisely love taking his piss. He would love it by the end of tonight. Would understand how much kinder it was, than anything these other men might do to him.

By the time Anka was wheeled into the ballroom, Summerstoke was smiling into his glass. He and Freddie were gathered with all the others, Freddie furiously recounting the details of the lavatory. He plainly thought Summerstoke must not have heard him right, and now made certain to tell Summerstoke that the little watering party was treatment too cruel and dehumanizing even for a slum-born Switch whore.

Freddie was right. It was. 

That was the ugly beauty of it.

Freddie broke off mid-sentence when the dryad appeared, in any case. His guileless pale face went slack with horrified shock. But Summerstoke did not even look up. If he looked up, he might have to give in to his more possessive side, and he did not want that just now. 

"Summerstoke," Freddie hissed again. "My god-- Are all of these men going to-- There must be _forty_ of us, damn it--"

But now Celeste's clear voice was ringing out. Summerstoke had agreed with her that a few pronouncements to humiliate the dryad would set the mood best, would leave Anka rather beautifully desperate for kinder treatment. But as Celeste spoke, and Summerstoke did not react, Freddie's normally affable expression became disgusted.

"You knew about all this beforehand, didn't you?" he forced out. "Damnit, I thought -- I thought you just wanted a place to put the boy so he could earn some money and you could romance him quietly, like with Covey--"

"Do not," Summerstoke said, feeling an ugliness take hold of his blood, "presume to use that name."

"I refuse to be a part of this!" Freddie hissed. 

He'd stomped off, as the other men had descended on Anka. 

But though the Honorable Freddie Audley was the least-regarded grandson of a former royal mistress, he was still a gentleman. He was born to be amiable and peacekeeping, but also to have his way. He stomped back to the gathering within fifteen minutes and began trying to reason with Summerstoke again, his voice low but determined. 

"You know what I think? I think you're punishing this boy -- he's a bloody _boy_ , Summerstoke! -- for your own grief--"

Summerstoke backed the smaller man against the wall. Without even thinking about it, he had a hand on Freddie's throat.

"Don't tell me my business, Audley," he spat.

He turned very deliberately on his heel, fighting to keep his Wrollf side at bay in a way he had not had to do since he was a child. Something about his banked rage must have parted the crowd of debauched degenerates about him. He found himself standing before Anka.

Oh, but the boy was well-used. Little trails of tears mingled with the cum on his face. His mouth was swollen, his hair in disarray. He was fucking insensibly into the flat of a paddle that a jeering Cyril Worthington was pressing into him. He seemed hardly aware he was doing it. Those beautiful black eyes were unseeing. 

For a moment, Summerstoke's heart gave a flip. 

But then Anka seemed to fix on him and see him. 

So it was all going as planned. Even while completely wretched, Anka did not fail to recognize Summerstoke. Did not fail to accept Summerstoke's mastery over him. It was this trait that had first drawn him to the destroyed thing Anka had been in the gaol. And it stayed with the boy now.

 _There is no agony he won't eventually accept,_ Summerstoke told himself. _Won't eventually_ like.

He helped himself to some of Anka's milk. Tasted it. It was magnificent. Refreshing. Subtly sweet, but with a tang he could not name. 

Anka moaned, a dribble of wet slicking out from his mouth. He was plainly run ragged. But Summerstoke told himself Anka would hold. He bent down to give Anka some encouragement, then turned and left the boy to be further despoiled. The more despoiled, the better. The more despoiled, the more Summerstoke would seem a beneficent god by comparison.

That would have been it, but for Freddie stomping back in determinedly just at the end of the auction. Rather than driving things up for Summerstoke’s benefit, he began to bid in earnest, clearly looking to put Summerstoke out of his sweet dryad reward. Summerstoke found himself in a dogfight, a brutal match. Freddie bid money which Summerstoke was fairly sure Freddie did not _have_.

"Are you mad?" Summerstoke hissed at him.

"Perhaps, but at least I'm not a damned beast!"

Summerstoke reeled back.

Freddie had never called him that before. Freddie, who knew he was half-Wrollf, had always done his best to treat Summerstoke as every inch a man. 

So much for that. With that ugly taste in his mouth again, Summerstoke set himself to beating the traitorous worm that was Freddie Audley. And he did -- he made sure to win every last one of Anka's holes for himself.

Of course then, when Celeste's Omnion dumped the young dryad on the bed in Summerstoke's personal room, this made the end of the night rather ironic.

Anka twitched and giggled a bit, but said nothing when Summerstoke called his name. When Summerstoke pulled him up by the hair, he only blinked. When Summerstoke tapped his face, Anka hitched in a breath, blinked again, and then tried to curl up around his stomach.

A small, very small part of Summerstoke began to worry that, quite possibly, Freddie was right about some things.

-

Anka was in total stupor for a good half hour.

Oh, to be sure, he sucked on Summerstoke's fingers when Summerstoke fed them to him. Summerstoke was reasonably sure that if he fed the boy his prick, Anka would suck on that too. But it was automatic. There was no life in the dryad. His gaze remained sightless, as if the little sweet reactions and silly hopes, the chatter and the boyish fear, all the bits that comprised _Anka_ , were locked down far away.

"Do you know who I am?" Summerstoke asked, low and urgent. 

Anka's mouth formed a word. Summerstoke could see him trying, see him attempting to mouth the word. 

"M-m--"

He broke off, whined again, and just looked up at Summerstoke blankly. Belatedly, Summerstoke realized that the dryad still had a pair of wooden paddles in his holes.

When he pulled them out, Anka made noises that were a bit closer to comprehension. Just a bit. Summerstoke seized up the coverlet and covered his battered, filthy body with it, and Anka clutched at it, coming back to himself a bit more.

Summerstoke gently stroked his hair. Anka's eyelashes fluttered.

"Who am I, Anka?" Summerstoke repeated.

"M-master," Anka rasped out. 

This was what Summerstoke wanted. This. To break the boy and rebuild him, to every time show him pain, then overwhelm him with kindness. The plan was for the kindness to remake Anka, to coax him back ever-more-willing to take more pain. Summerstoke had not fully thought it through, how to get Anka trapped in this cycle. It had simply become instinctive. It was a dance in which Anka, by way of his own little quirks, his worshipful kisses, his pretty sighs of thanks, showed Summerstoke precisely how best to dominate him.

And it was working. All he had to do, really, was patiently wait by the shattered dryad and give Anka the barest of kindnesses. Stroke his hair some more. Settle Anka in his lap. 

Anka had been so brutalized that simply not harming him would always seem like a reward to the boy.

But something was off. Though the plan was working perfectly, Summerstoke did not feel as though it was. It was like Freddie had managed to best him after all. 

Each time Anka made a pained, pitiful little movement in his arms, common sense told Summerstoke to use it. To stop stroking his hair and start making Anka suck his fingers again. To only wrap Anka up like this if he was going to pair the heat of the blanket with the demanding heat of his hard prick. 

Never to give Anka kindness without also some cruelty.

Summerstoke could not make himself do it this time. Not even the Wrollf in him. No, that part of him only wanted to keep stroking and petting. It was -- it had been _frightened_ by the dryad going so lifeless.

Summerstoke was disgusted with himself. Though for the next hour or more he simply held Anka, not really wanting to do anything else, he told himself all the while that he was ruining his own ambitions. His own hard work. The fact that Anka was able to come back still was clear proof that his plan was the right one. He might be, as Freddie said, punishing the boy. But Anka was not completely destroyed, though he might seem that way.

At the end of an hour, Anka was letting out enormous, shuddering sobs in Summerstoke's arms. He could not seem to stop. He gasped out, "M-master, Master--" over and over, his face buried in Summerstoke's shoulder. 

Summerstoke warred with himself. He was somewhat appalled at how the Wrollf wanted to ask Anka what was the matter, even while the man knew the right approach was to start fingering Anka's cunt a bit too hard. A bit cruelly. Introducing that cruelty to Anka just when the boy was at his weakest, and would mistake it for a gift.

"I d-don't have a _tuo_ , M-master. I c-can't. C-can't have one. Dirty. I'm too dirty. M-master--"

"Who taught you that word?" Summerstoke asked sharply.

He was always very careful never to speak of dryads to Anka. Whenever Anka's chatter slid in that direction, Summerstoke took it as time to plug up his pretty mouth with cock instead. Anka's innocence and complete ignorance about himself were traits Summerstoke prized absolutely. A dryad that did not know it was a dryad was a dryad that could not mistake itself for anything other than a slave to men.

Or, in Anka's case, Wrollves and men. Summerstoke counted himself lucky that Anka had come to him already so very susceptible to Wrollf cock, so literally gagging for the animal in Summerstoke to use him hard. 

"I'm alone, I am," Anka was sobbing now. He clutched his stomach all the harder, as if this was the one consolation he had. Which was entirely wrong -- the one consolation he should have was his Master's prick. The man in Summerstoke knew Anka should be forcefully corrected on this count, but the Wrollf reared up, stupid and protective. Summerstoke wanted to offer comfort, to salve the boy's evident, painful loneliness.

Summerstoke was very nearly alone. As a boy, he'd had Jem and Geraldine for companions, all three of them knowing themselves to be precisely the same: a clan born of Wrollf and man. But he was not that child anymore. He was the Earl, and he was publicly known to be a man. He was now set so far above even his own siblings that he could not even acknowledge one of them.

"M-master," Anka hiccuped. "W-will you find a good place for the babies? Please?"

Summerstoke raised an eyebrow, entirely confused now.

"You do not want to keep them?"

He had assumed the boy would. Celeste's letters reported any sign of attachment to the creatures he carried -- and there were apparently many signs. Summerstoke had seen some himself: the way Anka stroked his belly when he thought his Master was not looking, the odd little humming songs the boy sometimes sang to his clutch in his sleep. 

Celeste recommended a forceful and decided separation, and had produced the names of several men interested in buying Wrollf-dryad whelps, whatever those would look like. Summerstoke had a gentler touch. He had been planning to pry the boy from the babes more slowly, permitting Anka the joys of at least holding and knowing them for a few months. All while playing a longer game that slowly convinced Anka that for a ruined, ignorant whore to keep such innocent, undamaged little children simply was not right. 

At an acceptable time, the babes could then be sent to the country and raised as servants or something. Geraldine and Urk could take charge of them. Summerstoke really did not care either way.

But now Anka was saying, his Tangle accent thick, "M-master, I'm too--I'm no good for 'em. I'm such a filthy thing, I am. I don't want th'babies to be like me, Master, I don't--"

His thin shoulders shook with his misery. 

Anka always exceeded expectations. Always completed Summerstoke's games a bit ahead of schedule. And yet the result, once more, brought less satisfaction that that howling, protective Wrollf-anger. 

Anger at himself. 

Guilt.  
  
An emotion Summerstoke could not abide. The emotion that lurked in Covey's shadow. Freddie was a fool not worth thinking of, but he was not wrong. Thinking of Covey poisoned whole corners of Summerstoke's mind. 

Now he was breathing hard himself. He was clutching Anka far too hard. He needed to come back to being a man, back to being _sensible_.

When he found his voice, he said, clear and commanding, "I can send them to the country. They will be cared for there. You're quite right, Anka. You aren't fit to raise any children."

He made his fingers find Anka's loose back hole. It would be sore. Celeste had made damned sure there wasn't a single day in the past six or so months that Anka had not taken something in it -- when he was not taking something in his cunt, that was. The result was that Anka no doubt knew nothing from his holes but persistent, achy pain. But they were flushed beautifully. His green dryad's blood made them engorged, puffy, and the loveliest shade of emerald. Summerstoke ought to flip Anka over roughly to have a look.

Instead he just fingered the boy. Anka scarcely reacted, just nodded and said, over and over, "Thank you, thank you. Th-the babies should go someplace lovely, Master, oh thank you."

"They will be very lucky. Far luckier than you, Anka. After all, they will not be raised in a workhouse," Summerstoke said. 

Anka's repeated gratitude should have been enough, but he needed to hammer home to Anka how good his Master was. Needed Anka even more grateful. The Wrollf in him knew there was no lower he could drive the boy, but the man still wrestled with guilt -- and wanted Anka to assuage that guilt.

He ought to bathe the dryad. Anka was not fit to be fucked right away, not really. He was covered in drying cum, painted with the crusted evidence of other men's pleasures. 

With his free hand, Summerstoke now shifted Anka away enough to undo his trousers and pull out his own prominent prick. He wasn't hard yet -- why wasn't he hard yet? No matter. He stroked himself forcefully, just enough to wake himself up. He despised being out of sorts like this. He would bury his cock in Anka's arse and then carry the boy to the tub like that. Make Anka feel him even as he offered the dryad the small kindness of washing off all that spend. That would drive away these conflicted emotions, would provide just the sort of entertainment Summerstoke liked.

So he did that. He impaled the boy on his cock as if it was his right, which it was, and Anka did not fight it. Anka took it all the way to the tub. There, the hot water was a kindness Summerstoke tempered by playing roughly with his already-abused tits, and Anka took that too. He let Summerstoke do as he liked, just as he always did.

But his dark eyes were still not entirely lucid.

"You are not attending to me, Anka," Summerstoke said. He shucked off his own clothes -- Anka had rather ruined them anyway -- and climbed into the water beside the boy. His cock was now fully hard, thank the Saints, and he rubbed the head on Anka's pretty cheekbone, trailing precum across the flawless white skin there. 

Anka opened his mouth obediently, the reaction one borne of his own submissive tendencies, then perfected by months of Celeste's careful training. 

But then he mouthed the air once, twice, and closed his mouth again. He said, voice still shaky and distant, "M-master? D-d'you think I had family? In the workhouse? Mebbe they died, Master. But mebbe once I had them."

Summerstoke ought to have ignored the boy and fucked his face until Anka dropped the issue. Summerstoke did not do this.

"You had no family in the workhouse," he told Anka, his frustration plain in his tone. 

It was the truth. Summerstoke had looked into it. He was not so careless a man that he had not investigated the provenance of his future fuckpet. But Anka's origins were a total mystery.

"I've made enquires," Summerstoke said, short about it. "Soon after you left the workhouse, it seems it was raided."

The Duke of Allerton's father had been as mad about quashing indecency as Allerton was, but where Allerton focused on inhumans, his predecessor had merely targeted any place that seemed too suspiciously poor or dirty. 

"The foreman was killed in the raid. But the businesses abutting the place -- some of those workers survived. They could not recall more than one dryad ever being kept in the workhouse, Anka. You appear to have arrived there as alone as you left."

And he'd arrived young enough that the workers had remembered him as little more than a half-naked babe, a starving, pitiable infant that ought not to have survived to anything like fifteen or sixteen years of age.

"The likeliest thing is that you ended up in the workhouse after your parents and the rest of your clutch died," Summerstoke explained. "Dryads invariably die in the winter, if they are not kept in extremely warm conditions. Monrovia is only actually warm enough for your kind four or five months out of the year."

Anka roused himself a bit.

"B-but Master. I've lived. I've lived through lots of winters, I have."

Summerstoke had tried to unravel that, too. It made no sense, just as Anka's dark hair and fair skin made no sense. Initially Summerstoke had surmised that perhaps Anka was a halfling like him, and possessed of enough human traits to be not _quite_ a dryad. But so much about the boy was entirely dryad, entirely pretty and fuckable and graceful and green-tinged. 

"You are most probably a mutation, Anka," Summerstoke told him. "An accident of genetics."

It would explain the heat coming on so early, if not the ensuing fertility. 

But this only made Anka shrink in on himself a bit more.

"I'm weird, then," he mumbled, more to himself than to Summerstoke. "Not even a proper dryad, I am."

He blinked again, and seemed now for the first time to see Summerstoke's cock. He took in another of those shuddering breaths. He seemed somehow especially small, especially hopeless, as he leaned forward and did what he was good for. His warm little lips closed around the head of Summerstoke's prick. The thick pole appeared almost too much for his swollen mouth, but he worshipped it dutifully.

That night Summerstoke had him every way he possibly could. He ignored Anka's exhaustion. He ignored the Wrollf roaring inside him as well, for he aimed to prove something to himself. His plans for Anka were going perfectly. Every shattered little reaction from the boy was a good thing. The easy way Anka accepted Summerstoke driving furiously into his battered cunt. The way Anka spread his own arse cheeks without prompting, inviting the further defilement of his well-paddled rear. Summerstoke didn't even have to make Anka endure his piss. Celeste had left him a tray of wine and cherries, and when Anka realized how heavily his Master was sating himself on the wine, he obediently crawled to Summerstoke's feet, turned up his face, and waited for the piss as if he wanted it.

"I-I want it now, Master," he mumbled. "I know I s-said I did before. But I didn't. I was so stupid, I didn't see how kind it was for you t-to give it to me like you did. I'm sorry, Master. I'll be better."

Summerstoke stroked his hair gently, while twinging one of Anka's nipples especially painfully. Anka's delicious milk beaded up.

"Let me drink from you," he told Anka. "Then, when I'm done, you can drink my piss."

Anka displayed none of his usual fear. Only resigned acceptance. He was pliable and perfect in this. He was pliable and perfect for hours. He didn't even have to be reminded to kiss the cock that ruined him, kiss it and kiss it, just as he'd happily kiss Summerstoke's boots.

Summerstoke could not quite enjoy it. He remained out of sorts. Though he had carried off his plan better than even he could have guessed, he did not find in it any of the joy, the satisfaction, that he'd been assuming it would bring him.

-

Night gave way to the early hours of the morning. Summerstoke eventually permitted Anka to sleep. There were by now deep bruises under the boy's eyes, nearly as purple-green as the bruises on his bottom and breasts. And even lashing him a bit did not seem to quiet that prowling, enraged part of Summerstoke. As Anka dropped like a stone into the grateful slumber of the truly exhausted, Summerstoke pulled on the spare suit he'd had Jem bring inside for him. For the first time, he wanted to flee from Celeste's pleasure palace. For the first time, he was leaving bothered and disgruntled, instead of well-sated.

He found Jem waiting for him by his horses, in the modern carriage house Celeste maintained just next to the school. His Wrollf brother was sketching, as he often did when he was bored. And he was not alone. Euphemia was chitchatting gaily to him, hardly noticing that Jem was otherwise absorbed.

"Oh, please, please tell cousin Robert he must make time to see Anka. I was begging him all night, you see, but I am quite sure he didn't hear me. He's so terribly distracted! I think it must be something to do with investments. Papa is always distracted by investments."

Jem gave a dark little snort, too fond of Euphemia -- who was, after all, his cousin too even if she did not know it -- to be openly derisive.

"He does have a rather odd investment that's been keepin' 'im occupied, Miss."

"Euphemia," Summerstoke said, wanting to put paid to this right away. "What are you doing? You should not be up at this hour."

The girl turned, startled. 

"Why, I was just talking to Jem! Are you going already? You won't be able to see Anka when he wakes. And oh, cousin Robert. He's _so_ sweet and smart. I think he's the best friend I've made here--"

"He's not an appropriate connection for you," Summerstoke said ruthlessly, disliking this new development immensely. Euphemia and Anka belonged to two separate corners of his life, and had to be kept that way. "You are a human. He is an inhuman, a Switch, and therefore two steps above an animal."

Euphemia paled. 

"He is not an animal, cousin Robert!" she said. "He's a very nice little Switch, and he positively worships you--"

"As he should!" Summerstoke spat, with more force than intended. "You will stop this association at once, Euphemia, or I will write Miss Rivenhall and see it stopped."

Euphemia's lip quivered. But she did not cry. She did not say a word, only nodded to Jem, once, in goodbye, then proceeded to leave the carriage house with every cold dignity her station afforded her.

Summerstoke watched her go, amazed in his own way. Amazed and disquieted.

Then he was left with Jem, who was putting away his sketchbook and turning to preparing the carriage. Jem managed to do this in a way that conveyed distaste. Jem could do a lot of things in that way. As a Wrollf, his displeasure was written in sly little snarls and flaring nostrils. Back when they had been boys together, Summerstoke had hated to see this sort of mood on Jem, but back then it had been rare. They had been a laughing, tumbling set then, exploring all the glens and little hollows by the family's country seat, and later leading little Geraldine about and spoiling her relentlessly.

But now Summerstoke was the Earl, and Jem was not his brother but his servant. Jem's foul mood had become a constant thing, and Summerstoke had learned not to note it, for no one of his station should ever have to note someone of Jem's.

"Alienated a lot of friends today, have you?" Jem muttered. "I hope the little Switch is still pleased with you, at least."

"Whether he is pleased or not hardly signifies," Summerstoke said coldly. "Nor is it any of your business, really."

"It's Freddie Audley's business," Jem said. "Never seen 'im so worked up. Funny -- he just about worshiped you in your school days. I thought he was a right fool, since I _know_ you. You had a way of drawin' 'em in I never could understand. Freddie, Covey--"

Oh would everyone _please_ stop talking about Covey? What was it about this wretched, long night, that had everyone so obsessed with Covey?

"Covey is also not any of your damned business!" Summerstoke spat.

"'Course he is," Jem said, turning his unimpressed, slit-eyed yellow gaze on his brother. "He was my friend. Geri's too. And you -- you were ready to toss out all memory of 'im, rather than face the pain like a man--"

"I know rather more about being a man than you do, I should think," said Summerstoke cruelly.

But Jem didn't flinch. Not the way Summerstoke had flinched when Freddie had called _him_ a beast.

"You just picked up another pretty thing to hurt," Jem said. "You should have let him alone. That poor little fuck would have been better off dying in the gaol."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is less a chapter in its own right than a companion to yesterday's chapter, so it's going up even faster than usual, lol.
> 
> I think Jem and Freddie are fucking in the background, since Freddie realized in chapter 3 that Jem can dom the hell out of him. But that's #wordofgod so you can ignore it if you want.


	11. The Glory of Monrovia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucky Anka gets fucked by a national hero.

Soon Anka was so pregnant he was just about ready to burst, and Mistress, in a rare show of kindness, cancelled all the fine gentlemen's bookings.

Not too much kindness, though. 

"You will of course be fucked into giving birth," she informed Anka, as he kneeled naked and shivering in her office for an inspection of his belly and holes. These had become more and more regular the closer he got to having the babies. "But it will be on the cock of my choosing, understood?"

"Yes, Mistress," Anka said.

He was surprised by how unsurprised this made him. It made sense. Anka's whole life was dictated by Master and by Mistress Rivenhall. They were the twin hands guiding him. He was not to know pleasures Master didn't permit, nor cruelties Mistress didn't plan. 

He knew this now in a way he hadn't before. 

When Mistress made a waving gesture, he obeyed the unspoken command and turned around on his hands and knees so she could examine his holes. 

Her hands were freezing. He hated it. He still hated the cold so much. He could only close his eyes and bear it.

She forced two big, heavy ivory pricks into him. Cold too. He whined at that, but still took them easier than he had taken anything six or seven months ago, when he'd first come to her. The near-relentless fucking had loosened even his tight Switch cunt, made it go slick at a touch. 

And his arse -- the gape of his arse was best not thought of.

"Just because you won't be working doesn't mean you shouldn't be full of cock," Mistress told Anka now archly. "You should always be full of cock. Do you know why?"

"Because I'm a whore, Mistress," Anka said. That was the answer she wanted. It was the answer she always wanted. 

But now he blinked, shivering at the icy weight inside him. No. No, that answer wasn't quite right. He'd been a whore, before he'd come here. He'd always been a whore. He knew nothing else. But Mistress Rivenhall's had managed to make him something even less than that.

"I'm a slave," Anka realized. "I--I'm just a cock slave, Mistress."

Mistress' laugh was sudden and surprised. Bright and tinkling, like the little bells she'd given Anka to wear for bookings involving his tits and cunt.

"Why, Anka! What a surprise! You've managed to say something intelligent for once in your life!"

-

It was the last month of Monrovia's all-too-brief summers. Already the sunshine through the windows was taking on a special golden glow that meant soon the cold would come again. Gazing at the birds in the beautiful green trees left Anka sobbing a bit, knowing that soon they would go and he would lose even that small comfort.

Euphemia found him in one of these states. She ought not to have. The rest of the fine ladies were celebrating in the breakfast room that day, for the broadsheets were announcing Lord Taverner's decisive win over the Wrollves of the North. Miss Euphemia was mad for Lord Taverner, and Anka would have thought she'd be celebrating most of all. But this past month she had seemed almost to be seeking Anka out to check on him more than normal. She and Elsie had even pressed on him some clothing they had made for the babies, a few little embroidered gowns that were much more stunning than anything Anka had ever had before.

Now she kneeled down where he was scrubbing the hall floor. She wrapped her lovely, plump arms around him, her soft human heat and the flowery smell of her perfume helping him to calm.

"Oh, you poor thing. My papa's steward had a wife who was the same when she had _her_ babies. It's sometimes difficult to think of bringing sweet life into the world, that's what my mama says. Why, even a sheep will be a bit off right before it births its lambs! But you'll be alright. I have been thinking, Anka. When they're born, why don't you come and work on my papa's beet farm? I'm sure the steward's wife will help look after the babes for you. She has ten or twelve -- she won't notice one or two more."

Anka stared at her for a moment. He couldn't understand how the same world that contained such things as heavy, ice-cold pricks for his cunt and arse could also contain such loveliness as Miss Euphemia. 

He wanted to say yes. He had not the first idea what a beet farm was, but he wanted to go live with Miss Euphemia in the country. He wanted it more than he even wanted to be held by his Master, and that was a sobering thought.

But he knew, in his heart, that such a thing would not be allowed. He was not permitted to do what he liked. He'd never had that luxury, and somehow now, in the thrall of Master and of Mistress Rivenhall, he had it even less.

"Thank you, miss, but your noble cousin's already offered me a place for the babies," he told Euphemia. "He's already said they'll be raised proper, in the country. So long as I -- as I continue to improve, and do my work, like."

Euphemia stared at him, astonished. 

"He _has_? You mean he's been in contact with you?"

"Not so much," Anka said quickly. "But enough to do me that kindness, Miss."

Euphemia looked impossibly relieved. Anka knew there was no real basis for her relief, but did not want her to know it. On an impulse, he hugged her back, cherished hugging her, even as the movement made him feel the pricks in him from new angles. He buried his wince in her lace-clad shoulder. He was getting wet now. He was so low and filthy that he even dripped when he ought not to. 

No, he could never presume to go with a beautiful creature like Miss Euphemia.

"Oh, Anka, aren't you so terribly happy?" Euphemia cried. "Sometimes the world _is_ grand."

-

The school pressed itself into preparing for the Capitol parade, which King Bardolph had decreed was to honor Lord Taverner. But Anka did not take part in that. Every minor task was agony to him now, as in addition to the ever-hurting dirty parts of him, now his feet were too swollen to walk much. His back was so sore that just moving made him grimace. Hauling up the coal remained his main task, and sometimes it took him all day to do it, he had to stop so many times on the stairs.

By now Mistress had made him see a doctor. His name was Doctor Nenge, and he was a genuine Ordanian, a handsome human with Ordanian coal-black skin and tightly-curled black hair.

Anka had been told to take the rings out of his cunt and the cocks out of his holes, and sit on the chaise in the office in advance of the visit. So he should have known it was not a booking like with the gentlemen. But then Doctor Nenge had walked in and Anka had stupidly thought it might not be so bad to fuck him. His legs had spread of their own accord. 

Doctor Nenge had stared at him, disturbed.

"Stop that!" Mistress had hissed.

To Doctor Nenge, she'd said, "He's such a slattern, the poor thing. It's why he's landed in this state. Of course, we have tried to give him honest work here at the school, to correct his impulses, but you know these Switches. They are what they are. Whorish savages."

Doctor Nenge's response was troubled.

"I know only a few things of the D'lani, madam. But there are enough of them in my country that I can tell you they are not by nature any more savage than an Ordanian, and perhaps less so than some of _your_ people."

When he'd examined Anka, his hands had been gentle and businesslike. He was not trying to do anything foul at all. 

Anka had still gone wet and whimpering.

"I told you!" Mistress said stoutly, looking as if Anka was upsetting her terribly. "Perhaps you know some nice, decent Switches, but this one isn't like that. Why, we have had the most dreadful time so much as teaching him not to hump the furniture and the young ladies. That's why he has that little cage, you know. Vulgar thing. He needed to be corrected with that."

Doctor Nenge had stared at her now, as if unable to reconcile what he was seeing and hearing.

"This boy might be a young man if he were human, but he is not human, madam. He is a D'lani and is very young for a D'lani," Doctor Nenge said. "He should be innocent. He has not had the -- the maturation his kind get. He should not need a cage, and he should not be trying to hump any ladies. And his private parts are too engorged. This bright green color -- it is like he has been tortured here. And there are scars, Madam, where there should not be."

But Mistress had an answer for that, too. She drew Doctor Nenge away, as if she wanted to tell him something Anka could not hear, but she pitched her whisper just high enough for Anka to hear it regardless.

"I thought so. Oh, how horrible. I'm rehabilitating a Drukk, an Omnion, and a Snelling here too, and -- well. First of all, Anka isn't really a proper Switch. He's clearly sick and mutated and doesn't grasp the right behavior. Look at that coloring! Second of all, well. He's a bit too slow in the head to keep away from the other inhumans when he should. Oh, I feel _terrible_! I have not been protecting the poor dumb thing as I should have, have I? Thank goodness I called you in, Doctor, or I would never have learned of this!"

And to show her gratitude, she immediately offered to pay Doctor Nenge double his fee. After this, the Doctor seemed mollified. He patted Anka on the head before he left and said to Mistress, "I am glad you understand now that this is not natural. This boy needs to be protected better."

"Oh, to keep him from harm is my absolute _mission_ , dear Doctor," Mistress said.

But she was rough when she rocked the ivory pricks back into him, and to punish him for his missteps she made him sleep in Lookoo's part of the coal cellar, with the corkscrew cock drilling painfully into his arse all night.

-

He didn't know if he wanted the babies out or not. Even with the ivory cocks in him, it was nice not to be fucked. It was nice to have a rest, to not be used. He was not looking forward to being used so hard it broke his water. He assumed Master would be the one to do it, and ought to have welcomed Master's cock. Master had such a fine prick, so big and hot. It was by far the kindest prick Anka had ever had -- and, he suspected, was also the kindest prick he'd ever get.

But still. After the reaming from Lookoo, he had four days of no reaming at all, and he could have cried from relief. At night it was just him, his aching holes, and his scratchy blanket keeping him warm in the coal cellar.

And the babes.

He never really thought too much about them, because he'd always known, really, that it couldn't come to anything good. He had never been in any position to raise them. It was either give them up for something better, or know they'd live as he did, wretched and low, and he did not want that. So he'd never tried to consider them properly before. Indeed, until he spoke to Hil'ki, he hadn't even known it was likely to be more than one babe in there.

Two? Three? Doctor Nenge had predicted two. One very large one, which the Doctor had said was a Wrollf ("See? Even before he came to us, he had not the sense to keep away from inhuman advances!" Mistress had said). And one very small one. D'lani. Like Anka. 

He was glad the children would be going to the country. He was. Even if he found himself singing to them -- he couldn't think what made him sing, but it seemed to come on him like an instinct -- and even if now he knew just what they were. His little Wrollf babe and his little D'lani. 

There was no use keeping up with his reading lessons, but he did it anyway because he wanted them to have names. He hadn't had a name, not until Master had given him one. His babes would not be like that. Miss Euphemia and Elsie had found him a book of names and he'd smuggled it down to his little room, and when he could not sleep he sounded each name out and tried it on the little ones inside him. 

None quite fit. These were all human names, and for some reason he wanted the Wrollf to have a Wrollf name, and the D'lani to have a D'lani name. For some reason, though he knew humans were better than him, he was _glad_ he wasn't to be birthing humans. These were little aberrations, like Anka. They would have a better life, but so long as they were out there somewhere, Anka would have something like a _tuo_. 

He would have to beg Master to keep them together, to not separate them. So that they could have a _tuo_ , too.

-

One day, Anka woke and could scarcely move for a few minutes. His belly was stretched much tighter than it had been the day before. So tight it hurt. His tits were too engorged, too, even though Mistress had made him milk himself dry the night before so she could send bottles of his pale green milk to the most generous of the gentlemen. 

It was the day of the parade. Anka had already known he wouldn't be allowed to go see it, but it was confirmed for him when Lookoo sniffed his way around his doorway.

"T'day," the Snelling announced. "Th'babes. You're close, Anka."

Lookoo of course reported it to Mistress. Anka had thought she would be pleased, but she was tight-lipped. 

"You couldn't wait a day more, you little trollop? You never make things easy, do you? Well, you had better hold on until tonight, at least."

She made him take out the ivory cocks so she could put a different one in him, a curving metal one that went deep in his cunt and was attached to a sort of metal belt. The belt locked in place just below his cock cage. It wouldn't let him push the babies out even if he needed to. Anka felt especially frightened over that, and especially stupid. By now he kept assuming he knew the worst Mistress could do, but he never did. When he begged with her, pleaded that he didn't want to lock them in, that it couldn't be safe for the babes, she slapped him.

"You're not a mother. You're a dirty little cock slave, remember?" she said. 

He was sent to the Purple Salon. This made no sense, because Master never fucked him in the Purple Salon. But it had to be Master that was coming, because Mistress Rivenhall never told him to make himself especially pretty for anyone else.

Whorish, yes. But not pretty. Mistress gave him a little pot of paint for his lips today, and roughly brushed his hair herself, until it shone. She told him to clip the bells on, which he expected, but she also gave him a pretty sort of lace shelf to tuck his breasts into.

It didn't really hold them. They spilled out of the fabric, just enough so that the nipples half-peeked from the top. But that was alright in Mistress' eyes, because then the bells were free to jingle. She looked appraisingly at him, and said, "A pretty pose, now, and hold it for as long as you need to. We don't know when he'll be here, but you are to be beautiful for him when he arrives."

Anka knew what she thought was a pretty pose. He backed up on the cushions and spread his legs to show his locked-up cunt and cock cage. Mistress tied his hands to the headboard.

"Good," she said excitedly. "Good. Stay in place. It must be absolutely perfect for him when he comes."

Then she left, locking Anka into the Purple Salon.

He was there for hours. The room went cold. The thin purple light from the skylight flared around noon, then dimmed. Anka was freezing and hungry, and would have tried to find a way to suck his own milk if he hadn't been certain Mistress would find out and punish him for it. He didn't dare close his legs, either, because if Master saw him in the wrong pose, he might suffer for that too. 

The only consolation was that, once Master came, he would do something kind for Anka. Anka didn't know what. But no matter how cruel he was, Master always made sure to also offer a kindness.

Anka was starting to realize that maybe this was so Anka would accept the cruelties better. 

This was clever of Master. It worked on Anka every time.

He fell half-asleep despite the cold and discomfort. His belly was too tight and his tits too sore to really sleep, but he sort of drifted. As he drifted, he found himself humming to the babes again. He didn't really think about the humming -- just did it. They were restless and ready, but they would have to wait just as he did. Wait for their own sake. He hummed them little songs that reminded him, somehow, of the green of summer trees. Of Hil'ki and his siblings soaring through the air.

Mistress said he was beautiful like this. But Anka knew he wasn't. He could be trussed up, fucked bright green, painted and pierced and brushed. But he would never be so beautiful as the D'lani that could soar.

-

The click of a key in the lock woke him. 

Anka stopped humming-sleeping. His legs were spread still, and hurting from it. He spread them more. He looked expectantly at the door, awaiting Master's poison-green gaze.

A gentleman he didn't know at all walked in.

He was smaller than Master, not so tall, but still very well-muscled. He had close-shorn silver hair and blue eyes that were so knowing they suggested he was nearly as old as Sir Chester. But he wasn't shriveled or grizzled -- indeed, he was a handsome old gentleman. He wore a glorious blue suit with a red cape, and on it were all manner of pins and honors and things, pins that looked to signify the esteem and gratitude of all the noble houses of Monrovia.

He looked very familiar. So familiar. Anka stared at him stupidly, trying to place who he was. He was far too handsome to fit the parlor-pictures Mistress had hung about of the King. And he did not look at all like the one picture Anka had seen of the King's most favored cousin, the Duke of Allerton, for this man looked older and grayer and a great deal kinder.

And this man didn't sneer at Anka, as the inhuman-hating Duke mostly assuredly would. This man looked at Anka like he, too, thought he knew Anka, but could not tell how or why.

"You--" the man began, then stopped.

He approached the bed. He took Anka's chin in his hands, turned Anka's face this way and that.

"Remarkable," said the man. "I--forgive me. I do not know your clutch name. Can you tell me -- are you of the Weds-Leaves-To-Sea? Or the Tends-Branches? Or perhaps of the Sings-To-Sky?"

Anka shook his head, confused.

"N-no, sir. I'm just Anka, I am. I haven't got a clutch. Haven't got a _tuo_ at all. I belong to the school, I do."

The man simply kept staring in that astonished way of his. 

"You speak incredible Monrovian," he said. "How many summers have you spent in this country, Anka?"

"All of them," Anka said. "The winters too, sir. I _am_ Monrovian."

The man touched a brief hand to Anka's hair.

"Yes, well, you are not colored like you are from D'laniaa, I will tell you that."

"I'm a mutant," Anka told him. "Not proper D'lani, sir."

The man blinked, and now his hand was stroking his trim silver beard.

"I had thought something else," he said. "But never mind. That doesn't matter. You are the gift Celeste has promised me? A rare dryad mutation that can survive our native shores?"

At Anka's obedient nod, the man shook his head a bit.

"She is--" he said, sounding almost choked up, "she is far too good to me. I have been feted today, Anka. I have been honored and drunk to, have had my name praised as if I were a god and not a man. I have received every empty accolade you can think of, and every bit of worship I know better than to desire. And my Celeste, my dear girl, has managed to best them all. She has given me something I thought I should never see again. A sweet, willing dryad in my bed."

Then the man bent down and kissed him. Anka was certain he was not supposed to do that. Anka’s kisses were only ever claimed by Master, and Anka half-thought it was meant to stay that way. But this man still gave him a slow, whiskery, not-unpleasant kiss. 

"Oh, you taste like a dryad," the man said when he broke off.

He was quieter about his observations than any other gentleman Anka had ever had. Quieter and more weary, and more delighted. 

"That green, glowing taste," he said. "I've missed it."

A gloved hand rubbed Anka's belly, then stopped. The man looked down and frowned. He located Anka's belt, then rummaged around in the pockets of his glorious suit. He produced a key.

"Well, now I understand why Celeste gave me this. Let's unlock you. It might be dangerous for you to wear that, with how large you are. And you so young! You must be incredibly fertile. Your clutch will be beautiful, I'm sure, as you are very beautiful. But how far along are you, my boy?"

Mistress had told him he was to beg to birth his babes on cock. Now Anka understood why he was to beg -- because this good old gentleman might not fuck him if he didn't. And he was here for the gentleman's pleasure. Not to upset him, by letting him know how much Anka just wanted to have the babes and be done with it.

And now he was remembering who the gentleman was. He'd seen the profile enough in Miss Euphemia's broadsheets.

"I'm ready to have 'em, I am, sir. I'm to birth my clutch today. And it would be an honor, sir, and all to the glory of Monrovia, to please take the great Lord Taverner's cock in me before the babes stretch me too much."

-

Lord Taverner fucked him slow and deep. He praised Anka's tightness. Anka knew he was just right for cocks inside him now. He was tight enough to give them pleasure, but wet and open enough for them to get all the slicking they required. His cunt could take any cock, take it and drool its thanks for the intrusion. 

Master had told him cunts were made to be fucked. Anka's cunt proved it right.

But there was still more pain than pleasure in fucking, for Anka. Today it wasn't really any different, not because Lord Taverner wasn't being gentle, but because Anka was so ready to whelp. His tits hurt as they moved in time with Lord Taverner's thrusts, and his belly was still so tight. He could scarcely focus on the nice, slow way Lord Taverner fucked him.

This cock was rubbing him good, it was. Only Master ever rubbed him like this. If it were Master, he'd be more full, though. Anka dripped most when he was full with a really big cock. Lord Taverner wasn't small, but he wasn't so big as Master.

Still, he couldn't help himself but to moan. This fucking was so tame, so nice. Anka knew Lord Taverner was a fright on the battlefield, but the man didn't try to pound him. He was careful about Anka's belly, and didn't at all maul Anka's arse or tits. He just rocked into him, petting his hair and his side. Saying kind things, even.

"Good boy," Lord Taverner breathed out. "How you take it! Such a wonder!"

"Th-thank you," Anka managed. "'s an honor, it is, sir."

"The honor is mine!"

And he fucked in again, reached Anka's little sensitive spots. Anka's sore hole felt almost lulled by this fucking. 

"P-please try my milk, sir," Anka offered, for Lord Taverner was being so good to him. "It's proper refreshing, I've been told. My master says it's splendid."

The old gentleman raised a confused silver brow for a moment. But his even-keeled, lovely thrusts didn't stop. He kept rocking into Anka. As he fucked into Anka so nicely, he bent his silver head, took Anka's tit in his mouth, and began to drink. Even this was nice. Lord Taverner didn't use his teeth too much or anything. 

"Exquisite," he said, when he was done. "Thank you, my boy."

Anka blinked. For some reason, his eyes were wet.

No one ever thanked him. No one ever really thanked him. Maybe Master had, but when Master thanked him, it was more like he was reminding Anka that Anka's whole existence was about pleasing him. Which it was. Anka belonged to him and was half in love with him, and still Anka was fit for nothing so much as to kiss Master's boots.

Still, despite that. Lord Taverner fucked Anka like a fuck could be about pleasing Anka, too. 

Maybe this man won so many battles because he made you want him to win. Maybe the jungle people, the Ordanians, the Irvidistanis, and the Wrollves of the Norderlands had just shown their necks to him, because he was such a good old gentleman. Anka knew the world didn't work like that. But with his aching cunt so soothed by such a sweet, unhurried fucking, he was almost half-ready to believe it.

Lord Taverner dragged two orgasms out of him, in the end. Two nice slow ones, ones that hardly even hurt. Anka shook on the old man's leisurely pole like it was something special, and not the hundredth or thousandth cock his weary cunt had taken. Lord Taverner kept saying nice things as he fucked him, too, so that Anka felt proper grateful to come on his cock like this.

After the second orgasm, something in Anka seemed to shift. Distantly, he realized that he was wetting the bed too much.

"Oh!" cried Lord Taverner, realizing it too. He was such a nice old man that, rather than keep fucking Anka, he actually pulled out. Anka felt more tears pricking at his eyes. Lord Taverner was wonderful, he was.

"My dear!" the famed general told Anka, as if his stiff cock didn't still expect an orgasm of its own, "I think it's time! I shall go and get Celeste!"

"N-no," Anka said. The reminder of Mistress brought him back to earth a bit, reminded him what his duty was. And he wanted to do something kind for Lord Taverner, the only kind thing Anka could do right. "Please, sir. J-just come on me before you go. I'd love to feel your warm cum, I would. Or you could loose it in my arse or my mouth. I'd like it, sir."

Lord Taverner's warm blue eyes crinkled a bit more at the edges. 

"That's right, my dear. Dryads like heat. It's been so long -- I'd forgotten that. What a beast I've been, not covering you up more as I took you."

Now he took the purple coverlet and wound it about Anka's shoulders, he was so good. Then he pressed his cock to Anka's lips and Anka sucked him, sucked him and swallowed down his cum even as the cramping pain in his belly started in earnest. 

-

The next few hours were a difficult haze. Anka had not expected Lord Taverner to stay with him, but his lordship did. His lordship even unbound his hands and carried him across the hall to where he was usually fucked by Master.

"It will be better to keep him in a room with a real window, Celeste, so he can feel the sunshine," his Lordship chided Mistress. "His kind derive some strength from it, you know."

Mistress rolled her eyes. She was pleased because Lord Taverner was pleased. Anka seemed to have won her something far more valuable than money this time.

"That room will be more fit to show the doctor, anyway," she said. "Take the bells off him, papa. He won't have any use for those now."

After about an hour, Doctor Nenge arrived. He coached Anka through much of it, but the whole process remained painful. Anka was very used to pain, though, so he bore it. He even tried to stay as alert as he could, rather than sinking into the sort of blankness that pain forced him into these days. He wanted to see the babies. Greet them properly. 

Lord Taverner helped him in this. The weary old general had gone and changed into a nice suit before the Doctor came, and now sat in a chair by the bed and talked to Anka to keep him alert. Mistress had long gone, not interested in Anka at this point. But Lord Taverner stayed interested. 

"You see, my dear, the Wrollves are not stupid. They are honorable beings, in their way. I am glad to beat them, for the sake of the good men and women working for the Royal Exploration Company, but if I had lost it would have been to fine, brave warriors. Creatures I could have called friends in another life."

"C-could you be friends with a D'lani, sir?" Anka asked shakily. Doctor Nenge was gently feeling at him, down where he was so cramped he could barely think, but the Doctor just shook his head. Anka was still not going to be able to get the first babe through. He waited. Breathed. Pushed on the Doctor's count, despite the agony.

"I would love to be friends with a D'lani," Lord Taverner told him then, sincerely. "Your kind--" 

He broke off. He seemed troubled.

"--no, I should not tell you that right now--"

"Please, sir!" Anka said, trying to keep from succumbing to the pain. "P-please. I don't know hardly anything about D'lani, sir, not how I should have ended up in Monrovia, nor how they can fly-like. The others can fly, sir. I seen 'em!"

Lord Taverner nodded.

"So have I," he said softly. "Many years ago, when we first reached D'laniaa... The Delany archipelago, we called it. 

"Your people, Anka, live not on the ground where the worst beasts of the jungles can touch them. They live at the tops of the enormous trees. There they make their houses, such astonishingly clever nests. The heat helps them stick to the branches, and from a young age they learn to leap from branch to branch, in their cities high above the ground."

Anka pushed, but he listened too. Rapt.

"We went to your home, Anka, in search of myths, I suppose. Myths and an outpost for the Royal Exploration Company, one sufficiently close to Irvidistan and Ordania. Instead, we encountered your people. We -- well. If I could take one thing back, my child, it would be what we did to D'laniaa. I am not proud of it. Especially not of how we fought the older D'lani. The ones that had successfully completed their _pre-dinkala_. I cannot explain to you how nobly those creatures defended their clutches. They were as fine and honorable as the Wrollves of the Norderlands are.

"When we were done, we took the young and now-undefended clutches back to Monrovia. They were so beautiful, Anka, as beautiful as you. Every noble house wanted a clutch of D'lani. The thought was to keep them as pets, those frightened and lovely innocents. We took our pleasure from them, some of us very dishonorably. Their bellies swelled. But then--"

Lord Taverner had begun to cry in earnest. Really cry. Anka had never seen a human man cry before. He reached out a hand without thinking and wiped away one of the trails of tears. Lord Taverner grasped that hand like a lifeline.

"Winter came," he finished shakily. "It did what we, perhaps, had always intended to do to those sweet creatures. Many of those lovely, slender bodies were -- were buried that winter. My god, I am so sorry, child. I -- I am so glad to see you here, to see another generation of your kind born. If I could take back one thing, Anka. One thing..."

Then he wept, and Anka pushed. Anka didn’t put his hand down, though. He tried to wipe all Lord Taverner’s tears away, to comfort the old man even through the fog of his own pain.

-

His Wrollf was born first, such a big strong babe that Anka could scarcely believe the child had fit inside him. He had slitted blue eyes, the tiniest of tusks. His head was covered in a bur of thick black hair. He latched onto Anka's tit with fervor, as Anka explained to a surprised Lord Taverner about the sailor that had whelped him.

"That's right," Lord Taverner said, as if half-remembering something. 

Doctor Nenge finished the memory for him.

"Yes, in Ordania, when the elves mate with humans, it’s said they will always have clutches of exactly two. One human, one D'lani. So it is perhaps the same with Wrollves."

Then Anka had to push out his little D'lani. This one was so small. His eyes were clamped shut, his little green-tipped hands in fists. Anka had to wrap him in several blankets to keep his skin warm. While his Wrollf babe was a healthy brown color, his D'lani was as pale as Anka, most of him. His hair was so fair that it was nearly white. The Wrollf that had sired him had been like that, Anka remembered distantly. 

"Do you know any D'lani names?" he dared to ask Lord Taverner. "For the babe?"

Lord Taverner named the child Kalki.

"Kalki," Anka crooned, enchanted. "Kal. My little Kal, he is."

He tried not to think of how the babes would be taken from him. He slept fitfully for a few days, waking every time the children wailed to feed them, and sometimes waking just to creep to the cradle Mr. Shamrock had brought up and peer in at them, at the little Kalki and his much bigger brother. The Wrollf curled instinctively about Kal and kept him warm, and Anka thought he could not love a pair more than this, not ever. Anka tried to think of what to name his brave little Wrollf, but could not settle on something he liked.

Lord Taverner came by at least twice a day, and sat with Anka and agreed that the babies were the prettiest in the world. Elsie the maid brought Anka meals from the kitchens, and also cooed over Kalki and his brother. And one day Euphemia snuck in quite rebelliously, saying, "How funny! I've never been to the back of the manse before! Oh, Anka, Elsie said you would be here! Is this your room?"

"N-no, Miss. I sleep in the cellar, I do. But Mistress Rivenhall has been kind enough to give me this room for the babies, until--"

Until Master should come take them away. Anka clenched his fists in his bedsheets. He didn't want to think of that. He didn't. 

But it was inevitable.

"What are their names?" Euphemia breathed out.

"Kalki, miss, for the Switch. Lord Taverner named 'im. But I can't think of nothing fits the little Wrollf, me. Wish I could. Would like a Wrollf name if I could think of one."

"Write cousin Robert!" Euphemia suggested, with a dazzling smile. "He keeps Wrollf servants. And he'll be glad you've had the babies. He only _seems_ cold, I think. He can be ever so warm if he's in the mood, and these two pretty things, well. One just has to love them! And cousin Robert named all my horses, you know, because he gave them to me, and he's very good at naming things--"

The Earl was. He'd even named Anka. In the end, Anka wrote him a letter under Euphemia's direction, struggling to get the spelling right.

He was sure Master already knew he'd had the babies. But Master would like Anka surrendering them to him properly. 

Anka was coming to realize that, kind as Master could make himself seem, what Master really wanted from him was surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it’s not already clear, this is actually going to end up being a three-part series. Not my original plan! I just wanted to abuse an elf a bit. Well. Now I will get to abuse an elf a lot. :o


	12. Species: Dryadalis Caeli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amazingly, nobody hurts Anka in this extremely trope-heavy chapter. I know! I'm as surprised as you are!

Geraldine, who had a sensitive Wrollf nose and despised the smelly chaos of the city, usually could only be talked into visiting the Capitol under the literal threat of blackmail. But still she arrived at Summerstoke's townhouse just before the Autumn to take charge of Euphemia's first season.

"She's such a little innocent. I will not leave her to the wolves that are the peerage," Geraldine said decidedly, tugging at her green suede gloves and directing the maids to take her things to her rooms.

Summerstoke said -- growled, really, "She is not half the innocent you think she is."

Euphemia had disregarded his admonitions. She was plainly still interested in befriending Anka. Summerstoke knew this because a letter from Anka had come, delivered through Jem, and Jem would not admit Euphemia's hand in it but there was no one else Jem would ever deign to play messenger boy for.

Summerstoke was furious. Furious not simply at his willful little cousin, and at Anka, who should know better. Furious at Jem for still being difficult. And roaringly, overwhelmingly furious at Celeste.

 _Dere Sir,_ Anka had written, the letters well-formed despite the many, many spelling errors. _Plees com see the babees. There are too. The babee swich is nammed Kalki. Lord Tavverner nammed him. The babee rolf I duno wat to namm. Plees namm him fore me and thank you sir. With everry respeck, yore Anka._

The new clutch had been born. Anka's clutch. They had been born on another man's cock, on the cock of Celeste's bloody famous father, and Summerstoke had not been involved at all.

Mind, he had not thought to plow the boy until Anka literally burst. That was, amazingly, a perversion too far even for Summerstoke. But it went without saying that Celeste should have consulted him. He was almost as angry with her as he was at himself, for of course he'd become distracted. He should have been paying attention to the fact that Anka was so close to birthing. He had not been.

It had been, after the auction, a horrific summer.

The Duke of Allerton was now, in all but name, the king of Monrovia. This was accomplished by putting his sister Hermia on the throne as Queen. Though it had been six months, Hermia had not yet provided King Bardolph with his much longed-for heir. But in those six months her brother had been busy. 

Inhuman neighborhoods had been raided, the Wrollves, Eelies, and Peskies there brought in for questioning as to their loyalty to Monrovia. Proclamations about how much inhumans could work, and at what, had been pushed through as total law, despite the fact that they had not been approved by the King's council. Three of the Duke's men had arrived at Summerstoke's own door, and demanded he register his Wrollf servants as such with the crown.

"Every Wrollf under your roof, m'lord," one of the sniveling little bastards had said, peering about Summerstoke's receiving room as if he thought the Earl was hiding Wrollves behind the curtains. "And any you keep out in the country, too. See, if they are to travel about Monrovia, the Duke will have to consider issuing them the proper papers, he will."

"Like hell he will," Summerstoke had said firmly. "What is the basis for this? I am a peer of the realm. My servants go where I will them, and I do not have to provide _Allerton_ with their descriptions."

But the jumped-up little brute had not been cowed.

"Basis? We've been at war with the Wrollves, we have, m'lord."

"The Norderlander Wrollves," Summerstoke snapped. "Not Wrollves born and bred here in Monrovia. And the war is ending! The papers all say so!"

"Well, but it stands to reason the animals might get especially jumpy now we've put 'em in their place," the Duke's man had said, with a grin. "His Lordship the Duke -- he thinks some of the crimes they've been committing might even get worse. Why, not seven nor eight months ago, there was a pair of Wrollves almost burned down all of Queen Hermia's townhouse! You remember that, right? You had 'em punished personally yourself, if I recall. Whisked 'em from gaol and..."

He'd trailed off. Summerstoke had felt the bile rise in his throat, the bloodlust in him peaking. He'd pushed it down.

"I had them killed. My little gift to the Countess."

"Oh no, sir," the Duke's man had said, his nasty grin deepening. "Remember. She's your Queen now."

Summerstoke had never, ever, felt his position threatened. He'd gone straight from happy, carefree days in the country with Jem and Geraldine to his current place as one of the foremost peers of the realm. And as he'd been born looking entirely human, he'd never felt as though this was anything less than his right. When the tenth Earl had died and he had come to be schooled in the Capitol, he'd been instantly popular with his fellows, his _human_ fellows. He was commanding and wealthy and careless in just the right ways, controlled in public, forgiving of weaker men and their impulsive pleasures, and delightfully apolitical. He was a perfect Monrovian human Lord.

But the tightening restrictions on inhumans -- they made him remember all too well what else he was. And even if they did not affect him, they affected Jem, and possibly Geraldine as well.

He tried to broach the subject with his sister.

"If it bothers you, _do_ something about it," she said roundly. "Aren't you the one member of the family who can? You could have yourself placed on the king's council if you'd only condescend to play at politics, Summerstoke."

"I have kept away from politics so as to not endanger us!"

Geraldine regarded him coldly, her brown eyes hard.

"Please. You don't care a thing for not endangering us, or you would not have been so chummy with that Eelie wretch, Celeste Rivenhall, for all these months. Oh, wait. I forgot. She's holding your little dryad tart for you. Remind me how ruthlessly abusing an underage strumpet for your own pleasure keeps us protected again?"

Then she'd swept from the room, calling for the maids to bring her her parasol. 

Jem, similarly, displayed no sympathy.

"It's not you put out," he'd snarled. "It's me. I'm the one'll be jailed or flogged or hanged if Allerton catches me on the wrong side of things. I'm always the one. Funny, how I used to think you at least understood that. Now I'm to comfort _you_ about all this?"

"For Saints' sake, I'm of course aware things have always been harder for you," Summerstoke had said, stung. "That's precisely why I'm sad! For you! You won't be able to do half the things you need to -- go out to the country to see Geri and Urk, or visit those Wrollf drinking halls you seem to like so much--"

"King Bardolph's tits," Jem had sworn. "Freddie Audley is right about you. You're damned delusional, you are. Never put a toe out of line for me once you had your Earl's seat, could bloody kill me for a laugh if you liked and no one but Geri and Da would care. But now you see what the world's like and you're _sad_."

Then he, too, had strode off, as Summerstoke furiously demanded to know when and why he'd been speaking to Freddie Audley.

Freddie, naturally, had had nothing to do with him over the past month or so. Summerstoke had assumed he also had nothing to do with the half of the peerage that had been there with them on Auction night, treating Anka rather worse than Summerstoke had. Practically every lord they'd schooled with in their year, and a great many that were a bit older. But of course Freddie had reacted as if all the blame were purely Summerstoke's. He cut Summerstoke every time they passed in the park.

And evidently Jem and Geraldine were of a mind to do the same, if only they could. The only member of Summerstoke's household who seemed to at all think Summerstoke more than a wretch was Urk.

Urk generally stayed in the country with his daughter, and came to the city only when she did. He was a very large Wrollf, even larger than his sons, with a heavy potbelly and a silver-streaked black beard so bushy it almost blocked out his enormous tusks. Jem's tusks were trim, unintrusive things. Urk's were those of a nearly-purebred Wrollf, and therefore terrifying. But Urk was a gentle soul. He had been half-father, half-steward to his more human son, always patient and kind with Summerstoke, forgiving every mischief and mistake, bandaging every cut knee and scraped elbow. 

"Poor Robbie," he said, when he came upon Summerstoke attempting to make sense of Allerton's demands in the study.

Damn him, but Summerstoke had seen no recompense but to do as bid and list out all his kept inhumans. Urk's own name was written there as if he were little more than a prize horse. Urk. His _father_.

And he could not make himself put down Anka's name. He did not want Allerton to know a single thing about Anka. It was an instinct he had, a bone-deep howling Wrollf instinct. Now he second-guessed it, for Anka was surely far less beloved to him than Urk was. He scrawled out the boy's name and description before he could stop himself.

_Name: Anka. Species: Dryadalis Caeli. Coloring: dark. Age: 15-16. Position: Chamber service._

He would add the two children when he met them. 

Urk traced Anka's line with a claw.

"This one, he's like your Covey, is he, Robbie?"

"No," Summerstoke bit out. "Nothing like Covey. I've done everything in my power not to repeat that, don't worry. I haven't even knotted the boy."

He would not, could not, fall in love with another dryad.

Urk now regarded him like he pitied him.

"Robbie," he said gently. "What on earth do you think not knotting him has to do with it?"

-

It took a few days to return to Anka. And, naturally, the boy was not alone.

Lord Taverner, hero of the realm, was in Summerstoke's chair in Summerstoke's private room. Laughing with Summerstoke's private dryad. 

The damn man didn't even rise as Summerstoke came in. Not that he would need to. It wasn't often Summerstoke walked into rooms and found himself instantly outclassed, but now here was the one man -- save for Allerton and the King -- who could do that.

"Summerstoke," Taverner said easily. He offered his hand, as if they were to shake like schoolboys. 

Summerstoke took the hand only because propriety was necessary when dealing with humans. It made humans know he was truly one of them, for him to get the motions right.

Anka would not know that. Anka watched this now with wide black eyes, his apprehension written on his face. Summerstoke wanted to shake the boy for how involved he'd been in conversing with Taverner, of all people, but he held back.

"Celeste tells me she has been preparing Anka to enter your service," Taverner said. "In ways which are decidedly... Intimate."

Anka flushed. Summerstoke realized that he was looking easily ten times better than he had when Summerstoke had last left him, even swaddled as he was in a warm too-large robe -- a robe that had better not be Taverner's. Anka's hair was a gleaming, shining black, and there were no hollows under his eyes. And the boy was _animated_. That was the thing Summerstoke had so cruelly fucked out of him, the spark of him. The green, blooming life. 

"You and I should talk, Summerstoke," Taverner said now. "About Anka's prospects."

"Anka's prospects are with me," Summerstoke said. "There is absolutely nothing to talk about."

"Nevertheless, I have a few pieces of advice on how best to take a dryad into one's service," Taverner said. He stood languidly and gestured for Summerstoke to follow him back into the hall. "Please."

Summerstoke could hardly refuse the man who had saved Monrovia fifteen times or more. Stiffly, he followed Taverner into the hallway. The door to the room closed behind them. 

He and Taverner were left to regard each other in the thin hall light. Taverner's famous gaze had been described by broadsheet writers, variously, as the ocean, cornflowers, the sky, sapphires, and justice itself. To Summerstoke it merely looked steely, hard as flint.

When Taverner spoke, he did not at first address Anka at all.

"Celeste...my daughter," he said stiffly. "Her mother, Ssaanya, was her very image. Just as beautiful. I adored her. I have, despite my recent military reputation, usually liked the inhumans I encounter in my personal life. Ssaanya was the best I have known, but for one thing. Like all Eelies, she had a predilection for devouring the pained sounds of the helpless and frightened. She told me she could not help herself. I told her she could. Shortly after Celeste was born, we parted, our difference in opinion irreconcilable."

Summerstoke stared at him.

"Thank you for that story," he said slowly, slowly enough to make it clear that he thought all this was simply no concern of his.

"Celeste is my favorite child," Taverner said, ignoring him. "I love her, and she me. I gave her this school and went away to fight for Monrovia, in the hopes of making her position unassailable in our society, despite her inhuman side. I regret that now. I believe that, by neglecting her moral development, I have permitted her to make the same sorts of choices her mother made. To torment the innocent."

Ah. Now they were coming to it.

"You should perhaps take that up with Celeste," Summerstoke said silkily. "As Anka will no doubt tell you, I am quite different from her in my handling of him."

"Anka has told me that," said Taverner. "And I have spoken to Celeste. Do you know -- she offered me the boy outright to appease me? She told me that you, Summerstoke, have a secret. A parent as inappropriate as Ssaanya. And if that were to come out, I expect you would have a great many more troubles than me taking a young D'lani from your custody."

Summerstoke went cold. He could not think for a moment, could not breathe. The hero of the nation, this stocky little geriatric bastard, was trying to _blackmail_ him. Without realizing it, he stepped closer to Taverner, with an ugly sound like a growl in his throat.

Taverner didn't look the slightest bit concerned by this.

"Anka thinks you will continue to treat him kindly. He says that is part of your method, part of how you have trained him. Which, you know, I do not hold against you, on the whole. The boy is young, yes. But I understand the desire to teach a youth what a pleasure it is to submit. Training a young person in that way can bring delight to both parties, if done properly."

Taverner stopped. Exhaled, as if he were trying to think of how to make out his next points. Summerstoke, for his part, tried to think how best to murder the man and then keep Celeste from spreading his secret about in retaliation. 

Striking down the great Lord Taverner would be a folly likely to bring Summerstoke only greater miseries in time. Like burning Hermia Lanyon's townhouse had been. But right now he was too angry to see another remedy. He was clenching his fists so hard that his nails felt too-sharp, like they were becoming the claws he'd failed to inherit from his father.

Taverner said, "I understand wanting to use boy's pert bottom and mouth, and his little peach. I really do. And teaching him how to kiss -- it seems you did that wonderfully--"

Summerstoke lunged. This ancient braggart had _kissed_ Anka? 

But with an elegant sidestep, Taverner avoided the clumsy attack.

"--calm down, man. We're only talking," he told Summerstoke firmly. "I'm simply trying to tell you that, between you and Celeste, you have given Anka a most thorough education in how to please a gentleman. The boy understands perversions men three times his age have no conception of. 

"But what I don't understand, Summerstoke, aside from the piss thing, which I will assume to be some Wrollf need of yours, is why -- _why_ \-- you evidently continued to break the boy over and over, when you had him in your pocket almost immediately."

Then, without preamble, Lord Taverner took a close step forward. Summerstoke reared back, surprised.

"Perhaps you might have made a decent Wrollf in some other life," Taverner said. "But my god, my man. You have chosen to be the worst sort of man in this one."

Then he pulled back his fist and knocked Summerstoke flat.

-

Anka's eyes widened when he saw Summerstoke's bruised mouth. He was by then out of bed, leaning over a cradle tucked near the window, but he turned from it and stumbled over.

"Master, your lips--"

He reached out and traced his green-tinted fingers over Summerstoke's mouth. He looked, of all things, dismayed and shocked, as if he had not thought it possible for Summerstoke to be hurt by anything.

"Master, I'll get some ice from the kitchens, I will--"

"You will do no such thing, Anka," Lord Taverner said from behind Summerstoke. "He has only had a little accident in the hall. But he's very ready to meet your babies now, aren't you, Summerstoke? Anka says he would like you to name the Wrollf child."

Anka nodded, looking to Summerstoke. Summerstoke, who was by now a mess of roiling, hideous emotions -- rage and grief and guilt and hurt, godammit, his face _hurt_ \-- found himself nodding as well. 

Anka swallowed. He went to the cradle and bent over, reaching into it.

He deposited the smallest, palest little thing Summerstoke had ever seen in Summerstoke's arms. It was sleeping swaddled in so many blankets that, for a moment, Summerstoke mistook it for a babe of normal size, but it was in fact much tinier. It was like holding a fragile flower bud.

"That's Kalki, that is," Anka said shyly. "Have to take 'im out first, Master, because I don't want to leave 'im in the cradle too long without his brother. He loves his brother somethin' fierce. You can tell. Cries when he hasn't got his brother's heat by 'im."

Then Anka was turning and bringing him the Wrollf babe, a vigorous overlarge brown lump. Summerstoke blinked at it. Something in his heart twinged. This second child reminded him very much of Geraldine when she'd been born. It wriggled and cooed, its wide eyes alert as anything.

"This is my other babe," Anka said, and pressed this one on Summerstoke too. For a moment, Summerstoke was relieved to be a large man, with large arms, so that he could hold the Wrollf while not losing the still, softly-breathing treasure that was Kalki. Still, the children took a few seconds of arranging before he could hold them both right.

"Beautiful," he said, when he had one in each arm. Somehow he had stumbled to the chair Taverner had vacated. Kalki continued to sleep, burrowing into the warmth of Summerstoke's chest. His brother gurgled and smiled, little tusks peeking from his mouth.

"They're beautiful," Summerstoke repeated dumbly.

"A name, Summerstoke," Taverner reminded him.

"Kip," Summerstoke said. 

He blinked. He had no idea why it had come to him so easily. No, he did know. It was a name both in Monrovian and in Wrollf. And when he and Jem had been boys, and misbehaving, and Urk had not wanted to punish them, their father had teased: _Oh, so I suppose it was some other half-Wrollf that let the Squire’s flock out of its pasture, then? Who was it?_ And they'd shouted back, _Kip! It was Kip, Da!_

He couldn't understand why he was thinking of that now. Only he could. The little Wrollf in his arms, he thought, deserved to have something like that. Deserved to run about madly with his brother, cherished and happy.

His parent, too.

Anka was gazing at the children as well, with such evident reverence that for once the man and Wrollf in Summerstoke were united, united in wanting to protect that.

Taverner cleared his throat.

"I will be in the next room, Anka," he said. "You need only to call for me if you wish my aid."

Then he was gone, which should have relieved Summerstoke immeasurably. Only now Summerstoke was left with Anka, and that mass of emotions took hold of him again. He always, always knew what to do with the boy, how to direct and manipulate him. But right now he was rudderless. 

Anka wasn't his anymore. He would have to give him over to Taverner, a thought that made every ounce of him snarl with heartache. 

It was just like Covey. This was just like it had been with Covey. He'd wished to avoid this, avoid this exact mix of rage and sorrow and guilt. But he had only repeated it.

"Master?" Anka asked softly. "You're not lookin' at me. Did I do something wrong, Master?"

The dryad sank stiffly to his knees before Summerstoke. Summerstoke realized, really realized how much pain every movement cost the boy. He was still recovering from what had apparently been a hard birth.

Of course it had been a hard birth. Anka had had a hard season, whored out to the moral dregs of the peerage until he was swollen in places he shouldn't be. Anka had had a hard life, one that had brought him to Summerstoke already mostly broken.

Summerstoke should have helped him heal. He had pretended to do that, but he hadn't done it at all. Instead he had knowingly, deliberately, helped ensure that Anka was broken again and again and again.

"Get up," he told Anka now. "Get in bed. You need to rest."

Anka blinked. He crawled up into bed and, with a fearful look at Summerstoke, put his hand on the covers.

"You can cover yourself," Summerstoke said. 

He hated that Anka had to ask for permission. He hated too that, inside him, a part of him still liked that. Crowed at it. A creature as wondrous and miraculous as a dryad, too horribly afraid to seek warmth for fear Summerstoke would punish him for it.

Anka wriggled under the covers now with a relieved sigh. He drew them up until almost his ears, then looked to Summerstoke obediently again.

"Are you not gonna use me, Master?"

"You've just given birth to two children, one of them quite large," Summerstoke said. "No one should be using you, Anka."

Never mind that, in the darkest recesses of his mind, he'd considered it. He'd considered it every time he thought of arriving at this point with Anka, considered it as a sort of perfect domination: destroying the destroyed. 

But Anka only nodded.

"My cunt's ruined somethin' awful. Mistress says I'm to do exercises to tighten' it up as soon's I can."

"Yes, we loosened it, and now we'll make you tighten it," Summerstoke bit out, disgusted -- and not with Anka. "What a plan. What a game."

He felt sick at himself.

Anka, however, only accepted this, though some of the light in his eyes dimmed.

"'m sorry I'm not worth using right now, Master--"

"Do _not_ apologize to me!" Summerstoke barked out.

Anka flinched. And, almost as bad, the children in Summerstoke's arms began to wail. 

Anka was instantly out of the bed, though Summerstoke had very plainly ordered him into it. Suddenly the boy had no fear at all, seizing the small Kalki with a strength Summerstoke hadn't known he possessed. He took Kip, as well, his thin arms nearly overwhelmed balancing both children. For one horrible moment, Summerstoke thought he would fall, but Anka righted himself easily and laid both on the bed, so he could hover them both and whisper reassurances. 

"S'alright, loves. My Kal, my babe. My Kip, my good strong boy. S'alright--"

He bit his lip, as if he couldn't figure out which one to rock first. He was so _young_. 

"Give me Kip," Summerstoke ordered. "I'll rock him quiet. You rock the other."

Then, with more difficulty than he'd ever had saying any words before. "I'm--I'm sorry I yelled, Anka. I've upset them. I will help make it better."

Anka did not seem entirely comfortable handing Kip over now, a fact that burned like a coal in Summerstoke's breast. But plainly the boy saw the wisdom in dividing the work of the children. He passed Kip over again, then took up the little Kalki. 

They rocked them. Summerstoke wanted to look at Anka, admire the boy's beauty, but found himself absorbed instead in the wriggling, demanding little Kip. The baby had a deeper, more powerful cry than his brother, but fell quiet sooner too. Wrollf babes were hearty, amiable things. This one seemed determined to think Summerstoke a friend, and by the time his brother's own thin wails died down was smiling at Summerstoke with perfect guilelessness.

Perhaps it was good, it was right, that Summerstoke was losing this child's mother.

No. There was no _perhaps_. And there was no way, really, for Summerstoke to make up what he had done to Anka. 

Or nearly no way.

"Anka," he said now. "I -- we should talk. You have made a great, a great deal of money--"

Money Summerstoke would have been perfectly willing to keep, while damning the dryad and his children to lives of servitude. Perhaps Taverner would still make a pet of Anka, but Summerstoke could at least do something for the children.

"--how would you feel," he continued, "About putting the share I possess in trust for Kalki and Kip?"

Anka's mouth dropped open. It should have been wonderful, to see Anka look so instantly happy. So electric. But Summerstoke could tell that Anka was shocked by this act of justice. Anka did not expect it of Summerstoke. And Anka was right not to expect it.

-

He should have left the boy right then and there, left Anka to a master that plainly would be kinder. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do. But it would also be the thing to make the Wrollf inside him scream and writhe in grief. 

He stayed the whole day. He stayed and sketched out to Anka what it could mean, for the children to have all that money (and it was a fair bit of money). He explained to Anka about schooling, which would not be possible for two little inhumans in Monrovia but which could happen, perhaps, in Ordania or Irvidistan. Whatever costs Anka's earnings would not cover, wise investing could make up. Then he had to explain financial investments.

He discovered that Anka did not need any concepts explained twice. That the dryad, despite never having had his sums, could add and subtract and multiply quite easily, could conceive of orders of magnitude with no trouble. 

"Anka," he said, thinking of Anka's letter. "I understand you have learned to read and write. Could you show me?"

So then he discovered that Anka's spelling, while still atrocious, had nothing to do with his level of comprehension. The boy could read the broadsheets fairly well, after apparently only four or five lessons with Euphemia. His diction when he did this was much clearer and better than when he normally spoke, as if he had unwittingly picked that up from Euphemia too.

He was clever. He was such a clever boy. Summerstoke had never wanted to let him be, but he was.

Midway through Anka gamely attempting an article about ladies' hats, of all things, Euphemia herself snuck into the room. Or at least she seemed to think she was sneaking. It was hard for so vivid and robust a girl as Euphemia to sneak.

"Cousin Robert!" she cried, nearly waking the babies again. Summerstoke shot her a quelling look. It had no effect.

"Oh, cousin Robert! I _knew_ the letter would work! I knew you would want to see Anka as soon as you heard about these _dear_ little darlings! Aren't they perfect? Aren't they precious?"

"Indeed, Euphemia," Summerstoke said. "But please. Some decorum. Anka was reading to the children."

He was reading because Summerstoke had told him to, and he did anything Summerstoke told him to. He always had. Now Summerstoke had to close his eyes for a moment, lest the emotions take hold of him again. 

Euphemia managed to lower her voice, but did not alter her pace or attempt to stem the altogether astonishing number of words she could generate.

"What have you named the little Wrollf angel? And have you met Lord Taverner? He's as perfectly amazing as everyone says. He’s been helping me sneak up to see Anka, even though Miss Rivenhall was furious and said I must not do it anymore. And he's such an old lamb, he always makes sure Anka gets his meals on time, and he's insisted they keep Anka here and not put him in the cellar-- Can you _imagine_? They were keeping poor Anka in the _cellar_! I told Lord Taverner I was quite sure you must not know--"

Now, as if on cue, Taverner poked his grizzled head in.

"Anka," he called. "Here's Elsie with your luncheon and mine and Euphemia's."

A pause. 

"And Summerstoke's if you like, Anka."

What followed was the most bizarre meal Summerstoke had had in some time. Not simply because of the company. For some reason, the maid was invited to sit with them, which was so unusual as to leave Summerstoke wondering what universe they were inhabiting. And Taverner was incredibly solicitous to Anka, and Euphemia was incredibly solicitous to Anka. Summerstoke wished to be just as solicitous, for once, but knew it was a low, foul thing to only want that now that he saw others treating Anka properly. So he just held the babies. One baby, then another. First Kip, while Anka nursed Kal. Then Kal, while Anka nursed Kip. 

The maid offered to take them, but Summerstoke found himself roughly declining. 

As he nursed his babes, and everyone else pretended to eat, Anka actually dug into the food. For that was the other odd thing: the food. Heaps of greens, including soil-speckled dandelion greens it looked like someone must have just taken from some weedy bed. Radishes just pulled from the earth. Fruits with the vine still attached. Everything just foraged, completely fresh.

Covey had liked to eat like this, too. Had needed to eat like this. Dryads could adapt to eating the well-seasoned, omnivorous palate Monrovia offered, but they were better off taking their sustenance straight from the earth. They ate very literally like birds, ate seeds, grasses, nuts, fruits. Flowers, even. Summerstoke had known this, had known this sort of thing would be better for Anka, but he simply hadn't cared.

"Master?" Anka said at one point, catching Summerstoke in this reverie. Summerstoke looked at him, and found that despite everyone else's attentions on Anka, Anka himself still seemed content to watch Summerstoke quietly. Now the dryad picked up a plum and held it out to him. There was a smear of dirt from the garden on it. Summerstoke took it and bit into it anyway. 

Perhaps it was the last thing Anka would ever give him. The one thing Anka would ever give him that wasn't flavored with some of the boy's own pain.

The rest of the meal was a tender agony. Elsie and Euphemia spoke gaily about this and that, and Anka nodded along with his huge eyes. Taverner made sure the boy ate some of everything on offer. Kip actually fell asleep, and Kalki opened his eyes and revealed them to be as perfect, large, and black as his parent's. 

When it was done, Anka was drooping a bit and everyone, even Summerstoke, decided he and the babies should rest. The two girls tiptoed out, giggling, and Summerstoke put the babes in the cradle while Anka crawled back into bed. Little Kalki instinctively snuggled into his brother, seeking the Wrollf-child's heat, and little Kip put up no opposition to this.

Summerstoke then followed Taverner back into the hallway.

"Hangdog, are you?" Taverner said. "Don't like the thought of losing him?"

"I had not thought you one to gloat," Summerstoke said, hollow. "They don't put that in the broadsheets."

Taverner fixed him with a level look.

"I never gloat," he said. "But I know how to win a war. Often you simply need to know what people don't want to lose. Then, when you can successfully threaten to make them lose it, they fall in line themselves."

He smiled.

"The boy is half in love with you. So I won't take your dryad from you, Summerstoke. You may have your pet, so long as you make sure to treat him properly."

Summerstoke blinked. His inner Wrollf, which had been snarling and loping, chasing itself in a furious circle, now sat up like a puppy well-trained. He swallowed hard.

Then he was turning back to Anka's room, throwing open the door. Striding to the bed and kicking off his boots. Anka blinked at him as Summerstoke crawled up over him.

"Anka?" he said, and was surprised at how hoarse he sounded. "Please -- please, Anka. May I hold you, and keep you warm?"

-

Anka slept, and the babies slept. Summerstoke did nothing at all but act as a convenient source of warmth. It was somehow the most delightful evening he'd had in a month. No. The most delightful evening he'd had since --

Since he used to try and do this for Covey. Who he had not done this for enough.

Maybe since he was a boy, and sleeping in a pile by the fire with Jem and Geraldine.

Anka's chest rose and fell, and in his sleep the boy hummed his song for the clutch he'd borne. Summerstoke closed his eyes and listened. He'd never really listened to it before. It was not a song about him, and so he'd seen no value in it. But it was beautiful. 

Summerstoke fell asleep.

He was woken by Celeste's cold, cold hands. He jerked up. Next to him, Anka jerked as well, but did not wake.

"Freddie Audley and your sister are here seeking you," Celeste said icily. "You had better come."

Summerstoke stared at her for a moment in confusion. Then he went, pulling on his boots on the way, though it made him hop about in a rather undignified manner at first. He could think of no reason for Freddie to be seeking him, and nothing that could have driven Geraldine to the halls of a woman she hated. 

But there they were, waiting in an overly-wallpapered breakfast room downstairs. Freddie was wringing his hands in dismay, and Geraldine looked positively wretched. Her cloak was thrown hastily on the table in front of her, her dark hair was in disarray, and she appeared to have arrived wearing no gloves and no hat. Taverner was holding her hands, patting them as if to give her comfort, despite the fact that three-inch claws protruded from her nailbeds.

"Geri?" Summerstoke said.

"Allerton's raiding us again," Geraldine said, breathing out hard. "Right now. No warning. I was out for some night air in the park when he and his men came. Apparently he's claiming that father and Jem match the descriptions of some Wrollves who robbed a peddler or something--"

"The description," Freddie put in hotly, "is just 'Wrollf'! That's all they have. Which apparently permits Allerton to seize any and all Wrollves he likes--"

"--I went to Freddie, because I didn't know what else to do and I didn't know where you were," Geraldine forced out. "And no one can tell Allerton what to do, not you and certainly not me. So they've taken Jem and father, and I asked Freddie to please, please tell the King--"

Freddie was the grandson of one of the King's prior mistresses. In fact, he was also rumored to be the grandson of the King, though polite company never mentioned that. 

"He won't do anything," Freddie said, shaking his head. "I don't really have any power, and Allerton is closer to him anyway--"

"What do we do?" Geraldine hissed. "Summerstoke -- Rob. What do we do?"

"I don't know," Summerstoke said dumbly. "I -- I will go and talk to Allerton at once. I will sort this out, Geri, don't worry--"

"I'll help," Taverner said without hesitation, and Summerstoke suddenly found himself pathetically grateful for the man.

"There's one more thing," Geraldine said. "They were interested in some papers from your study. Some sort of list. I asked, and Allerton refused to give it back to me."

Summerstoke staggered. Very literally staggered. It was like, for a moment, his legs couldn't hold him.

Allerton had seized his list of inhumans. Allerton had very likely even read it.

The man had plainly wanted to see if he could bait him, make Summerstoke frightened enough to out Geraldine. But Summerstoke was not a fool, and had left Geraldine right out. No, he'd instead included another inhuman Allerton didn't know about. Another target should Allerton wish to level Summerstoke, who was now evidently regarded as an outright enemy.

_Name: Anka. Species: Dryadalis Caeli._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really did not intend for the story of my fucked-out dryad to have a plot and a world and such, but as you can see, it happened. Still reeling over it myself!!


	13. Bardolph the Vast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summerstoke, after everything you've done, you think just deciding to be nice means you should get everything you want? Come on, now. That's not how the world works. 
> 
> Or 
> 
> Anka makes a civic-minded choice, but, alas, gets royally fucked.

Celeste had a plan, though, in typical Celeste fashion, she only put the plan forward because she thought she might be threatened. 

"I've had a demand for a list as well," she said crisply, when they were all around the breakfast table. It was well into the night by then, and she had called for a snack for herself. She popped a cherry in her mouth. Freddie looked at the bowl longingly, but she did not offer him any.

"I cannot," she said, emphasizing the word not with her voice but by briefly sucking out every single sound in the room but that word, "Cannot. Start giving up the names of my inhumans. At least not the ones I take in to make me money the way Anka does -- I obviously don't care about the groundskeeper."

"How on earth does Allerton not already know that you're a brothel madam?" Geraldine said now, with a disgusted look on her face. "I should think all the worst degenerates in the realm know. And we're a realm with a lot of degenerates. How is it not a public fact by now?"

Celeste simply popped another cherry in her mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. She never spit out the pits -- Celeste _liked_ the pits.

"They know, but they do not tell," Celeste said. "I choose my clientele very carefully."

Summerstoke blinked.

"Good god," he said. "You have something on every single one of those men, don't you? Just as you have something on me."

Maybe some of them were even inhumans. There was a thought. He'd always thought that damned Cyril Worthington must have some Drukk in him.

Celeste did not confirm or deny his guess. She only said, "We need to curb Allerton. We have needed to for some time. And I've thought very carefully about how to do it. I've simply been waiting until it could be a possibility."

She laid out her plan. 

It made Summerstoke push himself off from the table, repulsed. 

"No," he said. "No, for Saints' sake--"

"It's so appalling only you could have come up with it, Celeste Rivenhall," said a visibly nauseated Geraldine. "But if it's our only chance--"

"What?" Summerstoke said, whirling on his sister. "Geri, you cannot be serious--"

" _You_ cannot be serious!" Geraldine spat out. "After what Jem told me you've been doing to that little thing for months now? You can't seriously expect me to believe that doing just a bit more is too low for you. And this is for father and Jem."

Summerstoke appealed to Taverner.

"Tell them," he said roughly. "Tell them of -- of how I intend to keep Anka now. How I mean to treat him."

Taverner took in a long, deep breath.

"Well, I hope," he said. "I hope you mean to treat him well. But your sister has pointed out the palace of hypocrisy you have created, Summerstoke. As the D'lani say: 'you built your nest, and you did a damned awful job at it, and now you're plummeting to the earth and you don't like it but that's life.'"

Summerstoke stared at him.

"I want to see the boy better treated, but right now potentially every inhuman in the realm is at stake," Taverner clarified. "Sacrifices must be made to defeat an enemy like Allerton."

"I will not sacrifice Anka!" Summerstoke said.

"I will," Celeste told the whole room.

Summerstoke wanted to shake her. Or do worse, never mind that she was a woman. But now Freddie, good, peacekeeping Freddie spoke up.

"Dash it," he said. "I hate the idea, and I think we shouldn't do it. Which is still only three to two, but you're all rather forgetting that Anka should have a vote as well, I think."

\- 

Then there was a fight about whether Anka should have a vote. Summerstoke and Freddie won against the women, because Taverner switched sides on that one. Then there was a fight about who should present the plan to Anka. Summerstoke knew it couldn't be him -- Anka would simply agree if it was him, would think Summerstoke _wanted_ this, and that would be disastrous -- and that it must not be Celeste either. She would not ask. She would order. As for Freddie and Geraldine, Anka was likely to, rightly, view them only as Summerstoke's proxies. 

In the end, Lord Taverner knocked on the door to Anka's room, entered without the rest of them, and explained the situation while the rest waited in the hallway.

Summerstoke could not help but put an ear to the door. It was thick and muffled sound well, because for all the things he'd done in this room it damn well had to. But he was part-Wrollf, so his hearing was exceptionally good. 

"It's my choice?" Anka was saying, as if such a thing was inconceivable.

"Yes, Anka," said Lord Taverner.

"Whatever Master wants, then," Anka said.

 _Yes!_ cried part of Summerstoke, even as part of him cried, _No, Anka. No!_

"No, Anka," Summerstoke heard Lord Taverner say patiently. "It is not what your Master wants. It is about what you want."

Then, of course, Anka had questions. The young dryad always had questions. Unlike Summerstoke, Taverner did not seem remotely annoyed by the boy's curiosity, and answered Anka gamely and honestly. Anka, with his little leaping, soaring way of thinking, asked about what the new rules for inhumans were. Anka asked about who the Wrollf was that had been taken with Mister Jem, and what relation he was to Summerstoke and his siblings. Asked about why they were so sure the King wasn't the one that couldn't produce a babe, and what Mister Audley had to do with it. 

Asked about what it would mean if Allerton kept being allowed to do these things.

"My whole life, no one's put a stop to 'im," Anka said simply. "I know why, too. Some people like 'im. Same people as would spit on me in the Tangle, as were just as wretched as me but liked Allerton sayin' that because I'm a Switch, I'm more wretched. I'm so tired of being wretched just because I exist, sir. I am."

Summerstoke's heart sank. He stepped back from the door. There was a horrible, crystal moment where he realized what would be happening. 

Taverner let himself out into the hall.

"He'll do it," he said simply. "Now the question is, Summerstoke, who will be the other player? Me or you?"

-

It was good of Taverner to offer, but, really, it had to be Summerstoke. Now that Allerton had the list, there was already a possibility that all Allerton's allies knew of Anka's existence, and what Anka was to Summerstoke. There was a possibility that the King knew. 

'Chamber service.' What a stinking brute Summerstoke was.

In any case, involving Taverner would only complicate it. And part of the goal was for Summerstoke to secure himself the King's ear. Taverner would have other ways to do that, and to have two of them elevated politically would be better than to have one.

So he went in the carriage with Anka. Him and Freddie. 

"There must be no shirking, or hesitation," Summerstoke told the dryad, the words like ash in his mouth. "We'll take your clothes when we're closer to Castle Voliere, so you exit the carriage naked. You will be cold, Anka--"

"I know," Anka said. "I've done this sort of thing before, Master. Been doing it for months now. Really, for my whole life."

Right. Of course. But oh, Saints, the boy hadn't ever done it a mere week since giving birth. Anka hadn't had time to heal, not really.

"Are you very sore?" Summerstoke asked, dreading the answer. 

Anka gazed out at the dark road, like he was trying to make out all the trees clustering in over them.

"'m always very sore, Master."

Summerstoke took in a sharp breath. He hated himself. There was no mass of emotions anymore. He just hated himself.

"Taverner and Celeste both say the King is not generally interested in dryads. Or at least he wasn't when it was popular to keep dryads as pets some twenty years ago. And his tastes are said to be very consistent, which is good--"

Because it meant the King would not see Anka as a thing worth keeping. Thank every single fucking Saint that existed for _that_.

"--you're just there to do a job. To prove a point, really. We're just not sure how long it will take, how much time and how many visits will be necessary for him to get you..."

He broke off. He couldn't make himself say it.

Anka said, "It'll take the time it takes, Master."

Accepting it. Accepting this whole horrible situation. Summerstoke deserved to be beaten half-dead for this, for making Anka like this. For everything he had done.

Anka now looked to Freddie Audley, sidelong. Freddie seemed to catch him doing it and began very obviously pretending to look out of his window, as if he wasn't privy to the exchange between the other two. Anka breathed out an exhale.

"Master?" he said. "I have a question."

"Anything," Summerstoke said at once. 

"Mistress Rivenhall, before I left. She said -- she said--"

Anka shifted, rubbing his chin a bit on his shoulder awkwardly. Summerstoke knew by now that this was one of the signs the boy was unhappy. 

"What did she bloody say?" Summerstoke demanded. "She's a liar. Nothing she says is ever something you should trust."

But now Anka looked up again, expression mulish.

" _You_ said she was nice and fair, Master. You did. You said it that first night before you took me to her."

Next to Anka, Freddie's mouth formed an 'oh' and he briefly clenched a fist. Like he was proud of Anka for such a hit. But he said nothing, and otherwise continued to stare out of the window.

Anka continued.

"Mistress Rivenhall said that I was -- that I'm not to think I'm special. She said that I'm not the first you've trained at her school the way you've trained me. She said I'm not even the first dryad you trained like that."

Oh. 

Oh. Never mind beating him half-dead. 

This was so, so much worse.

"Master," Anka said. "What happened to the other dryad? Where did he go? Why's he not with you?"

Summerstoke opened his mouth. Closed it. Realized that there was wet on his face. He was bloody crying. He couldn't seem to stop.

"He -- he couldn't take the cold, Anka," Summerstoke said. He couldn't bring himself to say any more than that. "He just couldn't take the cold."

"Did you keep him cold, deliberate-like?" Anka asked. 

"No!" Summerstoke said, horrified. "No, Anka, my god! It wasn't like that!"

"Oh," Anka said. His dark gaze slid back now to the window. A dismissal, of sorts, even if the boy probably didn't realize it. "Sorry, Master. But it's just -- you always do things so deliberate."

-

Freddie went in first. Summerstoke waited in the great receiving hall of Castle Voliere, forced to ignore the shivering boy on the floor in front of him. The naked boy. Celeste had given them a lead and collar for Anka, as if the dryad were a dog, and now he wore little more than that and the bells. Anka had put these things on himself in the carriage, with absolutely no indecision. His eyes had been carefully blank.

"Perhaps a cloak--" Summerstoke had tried, hating the way the chill of the night was already making Anka so cold his limbs were tinged with blue instead of green. 

"No," Anka had said, distant and removed as anything. "Men like to see the wares, they do. I got to look like a little gift."

Over the past few months, his speech had improved while at Celeste's. Enough that, the day before, when the boy had been lucid and not exhausted, he had at times sounded close to cultured. Tonight, however, he sounded exactly like a frightened Switch harlot from the Gin Tangle.

Even if his face stayed blank and poised, poised as a doll's. He kneeled on the floor next to Summerstoke's boots, his breasts and little cock in its cage on display. All of him was pebbling with cold and his lips were now as blue as his limbs. But he did not move or squirm about at all. He was disastrously perfect.

King Bardolph called them in. Summerstoke tried not to tug too hard on the lead, trusting that Anka would keep pace. Anka did, his bells jingling as he crawled on the gleaming floors, the light of innumerable golden candelabra making his green fingers, nipples, and toes especially vivid. 

"I'll look at the thing, if Summerstoke's offering," King Bardolph was saying to Freddie. "But don't think I'll buy. They're not my style. Never liked blondes, never could abide them. Your own gran was dark-haired, more's the pity you turned out looking like a damned china doll, Frederick. Tell you truth, the only blond I abide is myself--"

He stuffed a hank of what looked like roasted goose in his mouth. The table before the throne was piled with food, with jellied hens and pickled robin pie, with broiled swan and fricassee of crow. And there were delicacies from places other than Monrovia, as well: the sweet eggs of Ordanian sparrows, sliced cuts of Irvidistani peacock. Even a plucked, stuffed bird with black marble eyes that must once have been a majestic Norderlander raven now appeared to have been seasoned, fried, and tossed on a plate for His Majesty. 

"Frederick says you've got a dryad for me, Summerstoke," said the King, without looking up. His large hards reached for a different fork, the better to spear a side of peacock. "Used to be, men brought me pretty girls from Irvidistan to get my ear. But Taverner negotiated that damn treaty with Irvidistan, so that dried up. Frederick says you're trying with a dryad. Never liked dryads so much. They don't last, y'know. My own cousin bought a clutch, frightfully expensive, he had to sell a bloody mine to afford it. And then by Wintermass all he had was two dead dryads."

"Anka is...different, your Majesty," said Summerstoke, forcing the words out around the lump in his throat. "He was born and raised here. He can well survive Monrovia. And he is very fertile."

The King paused mid-peacock wing. Chewed thoughtfully. He put his fork down, reached for a well-wrought crystal glass that looked ridiculous in his enormous hands, took a swig, and then started carving up the raven.

"So Frederick says. I will say, I don't know that I need that, Summerstoke."

The King speared a black raven eye with a tiny knife designed for the purpose, plopped the eye in his mouth, and chewed with gusto. Then continued.

"Hermia's a bitch, to be honest. She's been a good sister to m'boy Allerton -- love that boy, like I loved his damn mother -- and she as good as raised him. But I shouldn't have taken her for a wife. She can't even give me a damn heir, which was the whole point of it. But I can always elevate one of my bastards -- no, not you, Frederick, you're damned stupid."

The king began to chew down the rest of the raven, gutting the bird with evident pleasure, savoring bits of innards. He still did not look at Summerstoke or Anka. Summerstoke cast about for something to say, to convince King Bardolph, and discovered that he was too relieved to do his part. No. It was over. They had failed, and he could turn around and take Anka home and wrap the boy in blankets, hold him until the memory of these moments had passed for the both of them.

His heart started to soar a bit, at the thought.

"But," King Bardolph said slowly, as he chewed, "Hermia's been telling people I've gone impotent. She thinks I don't know, but that's what she's damned saying. What all these bloody berks have been saying. As if I'm not the king! No, no I'd _like_ to prove I can still do it. Bring the boy here so I can look at him."

Summerstoke's heart plummeted again. 

He led Anka around the great table, the boy crawling behind him with his blue-tinted little rump up. The bells jingled and jingled. King Bardolph actually stopped eating long enough to make a little wave in the air with his fork in time to Anka's song. As Summerstoke brought the dryad up to his throne, His Majesty's pale, shrewd gaze spared a downwards glance at Anka. Went back to his feast.

Went back to Anka.

With great, majestic deliberateness, Bardolph Hampshire VII, the most illustrious monarch of the greatest empire on the planet, pushed back from the table and stood, looming over the little dryad. 

Anka actually looked up, for the shadow King Bardolph cast was vast. King Bardolph was vast. Not actually fat -- Euphemia was fat. The royal portraits always made Bardolph look similarly plump and approachable, as if the portrait painters were desperate to fool the people into thinking he was jolly or something. Bardolph was not jolly. Bardolph was a great blond devouring mountain of a man, of a height with Summerstoke and twice as wide from all directions.

His huge hands grabbed hold of Anka's hair. His pale little eyes gleamed in the golden candlelight.

"By all the Saints," the King said, around a mouthful of raven he was evidently still chewing. Bits of spit and raven flew from his mouth as he talked. "You should have bloody said from the start he was dark-haired. Haven't seen hair this black since my cousin Judith Lanyon, rest her soul. It's like the little tart was _made_ for me."

For a moment, Summerstoke could not breathe. His lungs simply stopped in his chest. 

When he'd first seen Anka, first seen a bruised young dryad on the floor of the gaol, spreading his freezing legs in invitation when really all he'd wanted was warmth-- 

As if the only way Anka knew to ask for kindness was to invite his own destruction-- 

Summerstoke had thought the exact same thing.

King Bardolph said, as if he were speaking to a dog, "Come on, bitch! Up! Get my prick out. And turn around. Like that. Spread the lips. Never had a green cunt before, but it'll do. Like the way you've pierced him up, Summerstoke. Ought to have pierced the pointed ears too, though. Here it comes, bitch. Let's hope you can take it all -- not many can."

Summerstoke was an Earl, a commanding man, a man of action. But he was frozen in place as the King chortled and began to move his hips. He watched with unseeing eyes as Bardolph continued to eat even as he fucked Anka, smacking his lips together with relish. Freddie Audley, meanwhile, tried to drag Summerstoke away. Summerstoke refused to move -- he could not move. He could not leave Anka.

"Just-- tight-- enough!" the King said, in the meantime. "Perfect cunt, Summerstoke. Perfect. Don't whine, bitch. There's still another three inches I'm going to feed you. Want to feel those piercings on my balls. Get your hips into it, like that. Wet for me? You little slut. Not every day I fuck a born whore like this, let me tell you. It's a delight. You can really ruin a whore like this one."

Freddie succeeded in wrenching him away, back down the length of the table. The slap of the King's thrusts and the song of the bells, and the way the man was still _chewing_ as he talked and fucked -- these sounds rang in Summerstoke's ears. But the only thing Summerstoke could see was Anka's dead, dull expression. Entirely blank.

"You'll take nothing but cum, no food, no rest, nothing but my spend in your cunt!" Bardolph was chortling. "Until that belly swells. That'll show Hermia, damn her! That'll show them all! Then no one can say a damned thing, not even Allerton, when I divorce the bitch. I'll fuck this ditch of yours all night. Summerstoke's made you a perfect cumrag, my god!"

Freddie managed to drag the grieving, raging stone that was Summerstoke to the door. The King did not pause in his fucking for a moment. He did briefly look up and say, "We can talk about whatever you like tomorrow, Summerstoke. Afternoon. I'm going to be busy all night -- I'll probably sleep in."

-

Summerstoke did go back to Castle Voliere the next day. Even though he didn't want to leave it in the first place. It had taken Freddie almost thirty minutes to talk Summerstoke out of the receiving room. The Wrollf in Summerstoke, and the man in Summerstoke, had both been broken, howling. And neither had wanted to leave Anka. Anka who was on the other side of the double doors to the throne room, whose sobs were by then so loud they could be heard echoing through the vast halls of Castle Voliere as the bells jingled and the King chuckled.

"You'll get him back when His Majesty is done with him, I'm sure," Freddie had said. "He said it himself: he's not partial to dryads. For god's sake, Summerstoke, you cannot stand here all night!"

So Summerstoke was there the next morning. Early. Much earlier than the King had said. He sat ashen-faced on a marble bench in the receiving room and waited for his audience with the King. Geraldine and Taverner had spent a furious few minutes the night before coaching him in what to say. He was sure he knew it, somewhere, but he could not think of it, because his mind was entirely empty but for his worry for Anka.

When Taverner arrived, and lightly put a hand to his elbow, Summerstoke looked up at him. Unseeing. 

"Ah," Taverner said. "This is the plummeting to earth part. Breathe, man. Breathe." 

The King was eating again when they were ushered into the throne room. Soups and piles of flapjacks, and a very large sort of eagle that had been cooked into a jelly mold. He gave Summerstoke everything Summerstoke asked for, everything Taverner seconded: a high seat on the council, the revocation of Allerton's last two decrees. His two Wrollf servants released from prison, effective immediately. 

Summerstoke hardly processed this. He was looking for Anka, trying to listen for any hint of Anka. But there was nothing but the cold marble throne room, the feast, the smack of Bardolph's lips as he chewed.

"You're a good man, Summerstoke," said His Majesty. "At my age, you get a little run down. Even if you're King. I was starting to think it was less trouble to just stay shackled to Hermia. But, dammit, I don't have to! I've found who I am again. I can take what I like and chuck what I don't, and Hermia, dammit, she's chucked!"

He reached for his glass again and quaffed the wine in it, his massive throat bobbing. A trickle dribbled from his lips, but the King did not notice. He just threw back his head and groaned.

"That's it, bitch," he said, addressing the floor under the table. "Lick those balls. Get me hard. We're going again in a minute."

A pause.

"Summerstoke, is that it? You can go."

-

Summerstoke went back to Castle Voliere every day, even if he didn't often have a private audience with the King again. Every damned day. He sat in council meetings and prowled the receiving rooms. He listened to various lords eager to win him to their various causes. He was the shadow of Taverner, who had also taken a place now as an active peer of the realm. But where Taverner was there for the realm, Summerstoke was only looking for Anka.

Surely, surely soon the King would tire of Anka. And the point would be proven. Anka would be whelped again, and there would be no more reason to keep him. Already the divorce decree was being finalized and Hermia Lanyon was out on her ear. Allerton had no way of getting his own proclamations through without the council, and now Summerstoke and Taverner both were on the council. The power of the Duke was decidedly waning.

After a week had passed, Summerstoke caught sight of Anka as the boy shivered in the royal gardens. Someone had thought to put some clothes on him, thank god, but only a flimsy robe in a color to match his abused privates. The King was eating again, out in the sunshine, with Anka's lead in one large hand. Anka was bent over the table, squeezing his milk out into an exquisitely crafted goblet.

When he was done, the King tossed it back, said something, and then Anka was doing it again. And again. And again.

His children, Kal and Kip, were no doubt wailing somewhere in Summerstoke's townhouse at that exact moment. They had gone colicky and unhappy. Geraldine fluttered over them and tried to calm them every day, and Summerstoke had hired a battalion of the finest wet nurses he could find, but still they seemed to know something was missing.

After three weeks, he caught sight of Anka being led through the halls by a servant. It was brief, so brief, but he was relieved to see the boy was being permitted to walk upright, even if he still shivered for lack of warm clothes. He wore a jeweled collar, like a proper royal slave. When he turned, and another one of those useless gossamer robes fell open, Summerstoke could see a subtle roundness to his stomach.

A servant found Summerstoke a few moments later and demanded the key to Anka's cock cage.

"Damn fine man you are, Summerstoke!" the King would roar at council meetings, at royal banquets, every single time he saw Summerstoke. "Fine addition to the court! Don't know where you were hiding all these years!"

Summerstoke was not a coward. Though he risked losing this extraordinary royal favor, he always asked. Asked, demanded, cajoled, and begged. 

Begged for Anka. 

His Majesty laughed every time. 

“I’d be furious to lose a whore that good myself, Summerstoke! But you’re not getting the little bitch back. He’s mine. He’ll die on my cock if I don’t die first. And if I do die first, it’ll bloody well be on top of him.”

Allerton, for his part, was icily enraged. He glared daggers at Summerstoke at each council meeting. Their enmity was perfect now. Complete. 

Summerstoke had cost Allerton his power, and Allerton had cost Summerstoke Anka. Summerstoke felt as though he’d been dealt the worse blow. 

But now the slim, pale Duke was always very polite when they were in public. Always gave very correct bows, always inclined his head to acknowledge his rival. 

It was like Allerton was actually afraid of Summerstoke now. Even though Allerton was the reason something in Summerstoke — that pit of yawning guilt — could not heal itself. 

“I did not know how you would use that Switch weapon when you pulled it from the gaol,” Allerton told him one day, very low, when they had both arrived late to the council meeting and been forced to take seats by each other. “Well done, Summerstoke. How very well done. Clearly I never gave you the credit you were due as a rival.”

Allerton paused. Looked thoughtful.

“Stupid of me. You, Summerstoke, are so perfect a villain that it’s almost an honor to hate you as I do.”

-

After about a month he saw Anka again, this time kneeling in a cold marble side room. The King was receiving entreaties from the public in the great hall next door. 

Anka was not alone. Anka was never alone. Still, Summerstoke ignored the footmen, the attendant holding Anka’s lead. He strode in, tearing off his greatcoat and wrapping it around Anka’s shoulders. 

“You have to keep him warm, damn you!” he found himself shouting. He lunged for the servants with his walking stick, making them squawk and scatter and cry out. He vented his fury on them with words for some ten minutes. He didn’t really know how to stop. 

He was afraid to stop. Afraid to look down at Anka and face the boy. 

But when he did look, Anka was just breathing in. Out. Carefully. Eyes closed. Not quite blank, but not himself either. 

“Thank you, m’lord,” he said, the slipping, gentle sound of the Gin Tangle coming out just for Summerstoke, despite all the cold echoes of Castle Voliere. “But m’lord? I — I have a question, I do.”

“What is it?” Summerstoke said at once. “Ask. I’ll answer. Anything, Anka.”

“The babies,” Anka said. 

He scrunched up his eyes, kept them closed like he was afraid to face a world that might not give him a kind answer. 

“Safe,” Summerstoke told him. “Cared for. I swear to you, I will care for them for as long as I need to. They will have every advantage, Anka. They will be spoiled and loved. Will not know want or hurt. I will accept nothing less for those children. I give you my word.”

Now Anka opened his eyes. Far from being dull and lifeless, they were full of relief. A little wet, as well, like he was holding back tears. 

He said the same thing he had said in the gaol all those months ago, when he’d been given just a sliver of basic kindness. The first words he had ever spoken to Summerstoke. 

“Th—thank you,” he said. “Thank you. Oh, thank you.”

-

“Think I’ll give you the constabulary,” the King told Summerstoke one day. “Allerton wants it, but he has his own guard and the Royal Exploration Company and he’s jumped-up enough about that. No, it’ll be you. You’re a man I can trust, Summerstoke. You’ll run the Capitol for me.”

It was a glittering political appointment, just the thing to cement Summerstoke as every bit the power Allerton was. 

But the King was buried inside Anka as he spoke. Anka was being fucked into the table, like just another meal for the King. 

Anka very deliberately didn’t look at Summerstoke as this happened. This was one of the bad days. On this day he didn’t seem to be looking at or seeing anything at all. 

Summerstoke went back to his cold townhouse. The children were by now in the country with Geraldine, Urk, and the wet nurses. Euphemia was as well, now that her season was over. The only person waiting was Jem, and he was putting on his coat and getting ready to head out to one of his Wrollf drinking halls. Summerstoke would pass the night here alone, then go back to the castle tomorrow and be powerful, so powerful, and so miserable too. 

“Jem?” he told his brother. “I—I have ruined something, Jem. Everything. I have ruined everything.”

Jem put a hand on his shoulder. 

“I know, Robbie,” he said. “We all know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t hate me, please! The first part of the sequel story will be up within twenty four hours. As I’ve promised, Anka's story will end happily there. I just didn’t feel like letting Summerstoke off so easily. 
> 
> And I really do like tormenting this poor little elf. Sorry, Anka!!
> 
> EDIT: aaaaand here is our sequel, ["The Earl and the Dryad."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24493303/chapters/59122078)


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